


Folie a Deux

by Dillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Sex, Arrest, Depression, Drinking/Drunkeness, Guns, Little Tony is Not a Good Adviser, Lousy Hammer-Tech, M/M, Oral Sex, References to Suicide, References to suicide attempts, Rehabilitation, Risk-taking, Risky Behavior, Suicide Attempt, Talking About Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:59:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 20,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I have always wanted to write a story where I pushed Tony to the very edge, and then there was not a happy ending.  This is my attempt:</p>
<p>Takes place post-Iron Man 3:  Tony ended up losing Pepper, even after he gave up the arc reactor and destroyed the suits for her, because a couple of big, dramatic sacrifices don't actually change a guy's whole personality, and suits or no suits -- And arc reactor or no arc reactor. -- he's still an oblivious guy with an addictive personality and severe work-obsession.  He leaves Malibu, comes back to New York, but not to the tower, because that's for current Avengers' use only.  Once there, he meets up with Loki, banished and powerless after Thor took him back to Asgard to face Odin.  Loki is also feeling pretty hopeless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Rabbit Was the Cause of it All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How fast can a guy destroy his life? Pretty fast, it turns out, when they're Tony Stark.

“How can I just let you walk away,  
Just let you leave without a trace?  
When I stand here taking every breath with you, ooh ooh  
You're the only one who really knew me at all

How can you just walk away from me  
When all I can do is watch you leave?  
'Cause we've shared the laughter and the pain  
And even shared the tears  
You're the only one who really knew me at all

So take a look at me now.”  
– Phil Collins

 

**_The Avengers_ , _Iron Man_ , and _Thor_ , and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

 

She left in April. Tony's still not exactly sure why. The renovations were done on the Malibu house, and her birthday was coming up. _A pet,_ he thought. _Whose home is complete without a pet?_ The rabbit he picked out did not amuse her. And he never got to the diamond watch he'd gotten as a standby. She left right after the damn rabbit pissed on her leg. Now he's stuck with the thing. It sits in its bigass-fancy cage, that he got from the pet shop on Rodeo, all day, and it eats the fancy-ass expensive rabbit pellets Happy brings by, and craps rabbit turds all over the cage. 

Pepper's in New York. She says she's focusing on what she should have focused on all along, which is the company. She says Tony's a distraction. She's through picking up his messes, trying to get through to a brain that can't seem to understand anybody unless they're made out of metal. Metal?!? What the fuck, right? He destroyed his goddamn suits for the woman. There's nobody made of _metal_ left around here. ...JARVIS doesn't count. He's mostly silicon, and a little bit of vibranium for the complicated bits in his memory chips. ...And with his workroom shut down, – For _her_ sake! For all she cares! – You and Dummy haven't been turned on in months.

How long does it take a man to ruin his life? Well the answer is, not very long apparently, provided they're Tony Stark. Let's look at this logically. A year ago, he pretty well had everything. The suits, the arc reactor technology: His mind was spinning off ideas, like – What are those fireworks things called? That go around and around and the sparks shoot off? It's like he was one of those, only instead of sparks, he was shooting off ideas. _Good_ ideas. And where they came from was Pepper. The point of the whole thing, is he was doing it for her. He wasn't just making things to be making them.

Then he blew up the suits. – For _her_. – He got rid of the arc reactor. – Also for her. – It's not like the workroom's gone or anything. He could still go down there and make things. But what would he be doing it for? Who's there around that would still care?

That was April. What is it now? It's June, right? – It's still June? – He closed up the Malibu place. Somehow he can't seem to stand the sight of it right now. And he came to New York... But he can't stay at the tower, because he gave that to The Avengers. Tony's not an Avenger any more, remember? What would he have to give 'em, now he doesn't have a suit? What's he got, his tech skills? _Please_. They've got Bruce. Word on the street is, Fury's querying Hank Pym about a place on the team. They've got that whole resident-genius thing well under control. What he ended up doing for a place to stay, is he rented an apartment. He figured he'd be doing some consulting, only that didn't pan out so well. Now it's just him and the rabbit. And Happy, who sometimes comes by to feed it while he's there. That's okay, he's gotten out of worse messes. – And when he says “he's” gotten out of them, Tony means _he_ has. It wasn't Pepper who got him out of them, or the goddamn Avengers. He did it by his own fucking self.

He's named the rabbit Jim Beam, after a new friend of his. -- Tony never was much of a bourbon guy, but autres temps, autres moeurs (This is a French saying his mother used to like. It means when the situation changes, what you do about it has got to change too.) – Its fancy-ass cage lives on the table next to the recycling bin where the bottles go. – Usually. ...When he remembers. – Happy comes by and keeps its food and water dishes full and sometimes he remembers to clean the cage too.

The apartment smells like rabbit crap. It looks like shit, because Tony's never bothered to furnish it. There's a table in there, a couple of chairs (he thinks), a bed in the bedroom. In the living room, there's a chair and a sofa. He sits on one of them in the mornings while he has his coffee. The other one is where he sleeps when he comes back really late and drunk. -- That's not _all_ the time, mind you, whatever you might be thinking. It's about half the time maybe. The rest of the time he just doesn't come home at all.

There's still plenty of women who would love to do Tony Stark. Don't get the idea he spends all his time alone, or that he's turned into some pathetic, can't-get-a-woman weirdo. Most of the time when he's out late though, it's because he's talking, not because he's fucking. He's had a lot of stress in his life lately. Take that whole Chitauri-invasion thing, pile the AIM fiasco, when they injected Pep with the Extremis serum and he almost lost her... Then pile her leaving, so he _did_ end up losing her, on top of that, and you're looking so much emotional baggage it would take most normal men a lifetime to deal with it. Tony's not normal. It'll probably only take him a few more months. A year or so at the outside.


	2. After That, It Was Because Louie's Was So Close to Starbucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's all a cosmic joke, when you think what they both were the last time they met, then look at what they are now.

Pepper won't pick up when he calls. -- What the fuck, right? What if he's calling about something important? – She won't return his messages either. This used to bother him. Now it's just as well. There are some things about how his life is going that he'd just as soon not have to explain to her.

Like how he ended up spending the day drinking with Loki, for instance: Everybody's favorite psychopath (only not) is here in New York too. Seems his daddy's idea of an appropriate punishment was to take all his magical powers away from him, and drop him on Earth to fend for himself. He did it to Thor too one time, apparently. Loki explained why, but Tony wasn't exactly paying attention. Something-something-something Jotunheimr, is what he got out of it, then blah-blah Frost Giants, and then right after that, “I was their rightfully-appointed _King_. They _betrayed_ me, and Father didn't care...” Somebody still has some issues he's dealing with. ...The upshot is, he's here in Manhattan, working at a deli or something. Maybe it's a Starbucks. – He's working somewhere that would never pay him enough for him to live here, anyway. Daddy must have pulled some strings, he thinks, so apparently he's not as uncaring as Loki says he is. 

Tony's not exactly sure how _he_ comes to spend the day with him. He comes into Louie's. Tony's sitting at the end of the bar in the spot he likes best, the one furthest from the drunk at the other end that likes to throw condoms at people, and closest to the booths, so when the office drones come in after five, he can get out of the way and be sure nobody recognizes him. The door opens and in comes Loki, and at first this huge surge of pissed-offness goes through him. He thinks about the portal, and the Chitauri-monsters, and all the dead people he saw in New York. He looks down at his glass, and for a minute there, this impulse goes through him to throw it the fuck at Loki's head. 

Then it occurs to him: He invited him to have a drink with him one time, didn't he? And for some reason he remembers that Loki's last words before they cuffed him, were, “I think I'll have that drink now.” After that, he just has to laugh. Think who they were the last time they met. Then look who they are now. It's hilarious, isn't it? In a dark, cosmic way, it is. Both of them were on top of the world the last time. Now they both have nothing. 

So he waves at him. “Listen, didn't I offer you a drink one time?”

Loki looks over. His face changes, green eyes getting all big and dark, and his mouth curving into a snarl. He looks back at the door for a minute. Then his chest goes up and down like he's sighing, and he walks over and sits down.

That's the first time. It's on a Thursday. Loki's drinking gin-and-tonics, which is kind of pussy of him, but it also gives an elegant, British Raj sort of a feel to what is otherwise a pretty down-market bar tab. They sit down at Tony's end of the bar and they talk. After the office drones start coming in, they move over to the good booth, in the corner.

Loki's big thing is he likes to whine about Odin. Apparently the old guy was at war with his father, and he found Loki on the battlefield (or something like that). He took him home so he wouldn't freeze to death, and he raised him right alongside his own son. That's not enough to convince Loki that he loves him though. Oh no, he has to set his own son aside and make _Loki_ King in his place. “Thor would make a horrible King,” Loki keeps saying, which sort of makes sense, – His brother isn't the kind of guy who thinks things through; it's always just see a fight, join the fight, for him. – but it's not enough to convince his father to put him aside and put a Frost Giant in his place. “A King must choose his battles carefully. He must use strategy...” Loki is also tremendously peeved that his father didn't appreciate his generous gift of a murdered Frost Giant King right in his bedroom, and that Thor stopped him when he tried to blow the entire Frost Giant realm to Kingdom Come.

He doesn't want to hear about Pepper. He doesn't care about the lost house in Malibu, or the fact that Tony can't stay at Avengers Tower any more. He just laughs a little, when he hears that all the suits are gone, and he doesn't get really interested until he hears that the arc reactor is gone too.

“Really?” His eyes get wide. – His _green_ eyes; funny, Tony would have sworn his eyes were blue, as blue as the scepter-thing he brought with him for the invasion. – He puts out a finger and touches where it used to be. “What's in there now?”

His finger's a little bit cold. -- It still feels weird to be able to feel anything in that part of his chest. It feels _wrong_. But there's nothing he can do about it now. – Loki's moved closer so he can touch him. Tony can feel his breath against his own face, he can smell the limes from his goddamn gin-and-tonics. 

“Just my heart,” he says. What's he feeling at the touch of him, he wonders? Like something's actually happening again for a change? It feels good, even if it is Loki doing it. “My heart's in there.”

“I didn't think you had one,” Loki mutters.

“What's that supposed to mean?” A long time later, like the next day, weeks later maybe, Tony remembers. Loki's staying with him by then (because it turns out Daddy isn't paying his rent, and his sublet falls through, and besides he's over there practically every night anyway). One morning he's in the kitchen trying to force the coffee through the filter faster so he can kill a hangover, and he remembers when Loki used his scepter-thing, and nothing happened. Like it should have happened with Clint and the others, it didn't happen with him. Because arc reactor. One more reason he shouldn't have let Pepper talk him into the goddamn surgery. Fuckin' Pepper. That's then, though. He's talking about the day he found Loki. At first he's mad about what Loki says. That doesn't last, though, it's just too long since anybody touched him.

The first thing he knows, he's grabbed Loki's hand. Loki's fingers are cold, but they're soft against his, and they're not Pepper's fingers. It feels good, touching somebody besides her for a change. He looks up. He's expecting to see old Reindeer Games trying to get away, struggling like a cat being held too tight. Instead, he's just looking back, and his eyes are very green.

A couple drinks later, they go back to his place. They're kissing on the stairs going up, and they barely get through the door before he's ripping Loki's baggy black barrista-pants out of the way so he can get at his skinny ass.

Loki's mouth is all over him. That guy can be the most touch-me-not princess that ever lived, but once he's got the idea he wants to fuck, he's insatiable. Tony has bite-marks on his neck, and little nibbled, bleeding places all over his mouth before... Fuck, he's got those before they get out of the cab together. Then when they get inside the apartment, he pulls his shirt off and Loki goes straight for his chest. He gets one of his nipples in his mouth, then after it's wet and hard, he goes after the other one. It's not the world's best feeling. -- If there's going to be titty sucked, Tony's always preferred being on the _delivery_ side, rather than the receiving one. – But try telling Loki that. Tony finally gives up.

Loki wears tightie-whities. Right now they're very tight, and there's a damp place in front where the tip of his hardon is. It's been _forever_ since Tony's been with a man. How could he have gone so long without it, he remembers wondering, and then, _oh yeah._ he thinks. _Pepper._

Certain redheads he could mention have really turned him off on women. The soft feel of their tits under his hands (with those nipples, like sweet strawberries in his mouth), the warmth of pussy (protected by soft curls of reddish hair, tidily pruned): He doesn't care if he ever sees any of it again. Give him a man. Give him a neat ass, eight or ten inches of hardon leaking precum... Give him curls of black hair to run his fingers through, and a hard, demanding mouth with just the teeniest bit of razor-stubble all around it. 

Tony pulls Loki's pants off, then his tightie-whities. He grabs his head and drags it away from his own nips so they can kiss some more, while they're trying to make it over to the sofa. After a while, when they come up for air, he goes to the bedroom for the lube and the condoms.

Full disclosure here, Loki hates letting someone else do him. It's some kind of Asgardian thing. The warrior code: Only women get fucked. Loki's already thinks everyone thinks he's a woman, because apparently it's only women who do magic, or something like that. There's no way he's letting somebody violate that sweet little ass of his.

Fuller disclosure: By that time, Tony's so desperate he agrees, as long as Loki will suck him off in return. The first time, he doesn't make it. With enough lube, being fucked up the ass doesn't feel all that bad after the first couple of seconds. And there's this place inside you that's, like, incredibly sensitive. The other guy gets a rhythm going where he starts hitting that, that's really all it's going to take. He holds Loki to his promise though, and late that night, he gets to find out exactly how good he is at sucking.


	3. Then The Next Part Was Loki's Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, it had to happen: Happy came over when Loki was there. Now he's got the story of the century to tell Pepper.

Loki's been there about a week, the first time Happy sees him. Hap's come over like he does sometimes. He's going to feed the rabbit. Loki's in the bathroom. Tony's in the kitchen, making coffee.

“Hey, Mr. Stark.” These days he always looks at him like he can't fucking think of a thing to say. And he'll _stare_ all around the place. He's barely in the door, and he's all eyes. He's looking at the sofa with the blanket on it, and the condoms under the half-used tube of lube on the coffee table, and the recycling bin in the kitchen, with the bottles in it. “How's tricks?”

“Tony.” Mechanical words, while he waits for the coffee to brew. “Call me Tony.”

“Yeah.” Big guy stands by the coffee table, his fists closing and unclosing. He shoots a look over at the rabbit cage, then he's _staring_ all around the place again. “Listen, I'm in town...” –

_No shit. You're here, aren't you?_ –

“You ever want to go a few rounds in the ring...”

Now it's Tony's turn to say it: “Yeah.” Bubble-bubble goes the coffee, and squirt-squirt-squirt, into the little glass-pot thing at the bottom. Hiss-hiss goes a little of it, as it spills over the edge and down on the burner. Tony's head hurts like a sonuvabitch; just moving, sends like a million goddamn knives right through his brain. He looks over at Happy. _Pepper pays him,_ he thinks. _She probably sends him over here. Why._ Then he looks back at Hap again, and he feels guilty. Big guy never did anybody any harm. A hamburger, maybe. He's murder to a hamburger. Sometimes maybe he doesn't give the goddamn rabbit the brand of food it likes best.

“You want some coffee?” He looks in the cabinet. Are there three clean cups? There's one, there's another. There... Nope, that's a sugar bowl. He grabs one out of the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and rinses it out. He ignores the way his hands are shaking. What the fuck were he and Loki drinking last night?

“Yeah sure, I guess.” Happy's busy with the rabbit cage. Dump, there go all the rabbit craps into the trash bag he brought. In goes the... – What do you call it? The bedding? – In goes the bedding. Here comes some new bedding. Damn rabbit's going to sleep comfier than Tony, tonight. Hap comes into the kitchen with some kind of metal can-thing. “Excuse me, Mr. Stark...”

“Tony.”

“...Excuse me, _Tony_. Gotta wash out Hopster's food dish.” --

_Hopster_. Jesus! --

Then he looks up, and his eyes get wide. Tony looks up from the coffee. There in the doorway, is Loki, wearing nothing but a towel, around his lean hips, and rubbing another one through the tangle of his long, dark hair.

“I...” Hap shoots a quick look over at Tony. He looks down at the rabbit dish in his hand. Then he stares at Loki some more. “Haven't I... Where have I seen you before?”

With that towel of his just barely hanging onto his hips, Loki goes right past him. “Coffee.” He fills one of the clean cups, takes a drink. Then he looks over at Happy. “Who's this?”

What the hell, right? Tony pours himself some coffee too. “Loki, meet Happy Hogan.” He gestures. “Happy, this is Loki of Asgard.”

“I ...Loki. The war-crim...” Hap's just standing there with that damn rabbit dish in his hand. “Er, uh, nice to...” His voice trails off and he comes over to the coffee pot. When Loki's in the way, he stands back, and gives him a funny look until he can get in there and pour himself some too.

He's going to tell Pepper, isn't he, Tony thinks. Bitch'll think, “Oh, Tony can't handle his life without me. Look what he's done now.”

“If Pepper hears about this,” he says, “I'm going to know who told her.”

“What, me?” Happy jumps. “ _Pepper_?” 

Loki gives him an evil look. “Is this an enemy of yours?”

An enemy? _He's a friend, Loki. That's worse._

Tony takes his coffee back to the sofa. There's one of Loki's shoes. There's... – What the hell are those? Are they his pants? – He shoves himself some space and sits down. “Hap's cool,” he says. “He's just here to feed the rabbit.” Then he watches the whole rest of the time Happy's in there, just to see what else he might be able to tell Pepper.

After a while Loki comes in and sits down with him. He's got one of Tony's shirts on. It's too short in the sleeves, and way too big around the neck. What an ego-boost, right? He leans against Tony, and he watches Happy too.

Hap gives Hopster his new food. He cleans out his water bottle and refills it. Then he looks back at Tony.

Loki... Here's what happens: As soon as he sees him look over at them, fuckin' Loki grabs Tony's face. He pulls him close and starts _kissing_ him, like they've been making out the whole time. Tony tastes the coffee on his tongue, and a little mint from where he brushed his teeth after his shower. If he had any idea Loki was starting something, it's out of his head, when he sees him throw a little look over Happy's way. He's fucking with him, is what he's doing. Or maybe he's fucking with Tony? Hap stares at him, all the time he's putting goddamn Hopster's water bottle back in his cage. Then he stares while he's leaving. “Uh, bye, Mr. Stark,” he says, and he's gone before Tony can tell him again to call him Tony.

Right away, Loki lets go of him and leans back. “Brush your teeth,” he says. “Your breath is foul.”

Bastard. “You know who that was?”

“Do I care?” Loki looks at him, green eyes, under hair that's still a tousle of messy curls. “Take a shower too,” he says. “You stink.”

He probably does stink. He hasn't showered in... -- When was the last time? Did he shower yesterday? – Tony grabs the towel, from where Loki left it on the back of the sofa. Naturally, it's all wet. “That was my girlfriend's bodyguard,” he says. “Now he's going to fuckin' tell her...”

“Your girlfriend.” Loki gives a short laugh. “Your _ex_ -girlfriend.” He holds up his empty cup. “Get me more coffee.”

For two cents, he'd throw the cup at his goddamn head. “Get your own coffee. It's probably burnt. You can add some spiced rum to kill the taste.”

Another laugh. “Some of us have to work.”

“Yeah, well some of us are geniuses. We've already done a lifetime's work, while you were following your goddamn brother around and plotting against him.” Tony undoes last night's shirt. He takes it off, and his undershorts, and dumps them both in the hamper. “How many times have you tried to kill him now?” he yells from the bathroom. “Four, is it? Five? And you haven't succeeded yet?”

“Mortal scum,” comes back the answer from the kitchen. He hears the rattle-rattle of Loki putting his cup in the sink while he's starting the shower. Then, over the noise of the water, there's the thump, that's him opening the door hard enough so it hits the wall, and the bang, that's him going out and slamming the door.

Goddamn Loki went off and left it unlocked again. He also gave Hap the story of the century, to take back to Pepper. Goddamn Loki better not come back here after he finishes work tonight. But he will, Tony knows, because he doesn't have anyplace else to go. And Tony'll let him in.


	4. Pepper's Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because she _called_. Why did she have to call _now_?

“You're with Loki.”

_Now_ she calls. He left all those messages, and now _she_ calls.

“I'm not _with_ Loki.” Tony looks over at the bedroom door. It's closed. Loki's in there, doing god knows what. Probably not sleeping. “Sometimes he's here, sometimes he's not here. – He's here right now. ”

“You're with Loki. _And_ you've been drinking,” ” Her voice is like a buzz saw. Did he ever tell her that? He should have. Maybe he should tell her now: _Pepper,_ he'll say, _your voice is like a buzz saw._ Yeah, that'll make a difference. “It's three in the afternoon, Tony.”

“Is it? I thought it was later.” Tony snags his beer off the coffee table and takes a drink.

“What was that?” Sharp-eared Pepper.

“I'm drinking something. _If_ it's all right with you. It's none of your business, you know,” he says. “If you cared, you could have stuck around.”

Huge, impatient sigh. God, this woman does nothing but make impatient noises. “You know I couldn't, Tony. You weren't even seeing me.”

So she left, so he'd never see her. Logical. “Why don't you come over, then. You'll see me, I'll see you. Or wait, we could have dinner, maybe...” – Gulp-gulp-gulp, there goes the last of the beer. Tony tosses the can in the direction of the recycling. Too bad Mr. Tall-Grumpy-and-Asgardian isn't in here to get him another one. – “You still eat dinner, don't you?”

Another puff of irritated air. “You know I'm not going to do that.”

Why's she not? What the hell's wrong with seeing him, suddenly? – Why's she calling him anyway? Oh yeah that's right, he thinks: _Happy's_ been talking to her.

“Are you why Happy keeps coming over?”

“He's coming to feed the rabbit,” Pepper says. “I asked him...”

She asked him. Bingo. “You've been sending him to check up on me.”

And the instant, irritated squawk: “Oh my god, Tony, what's _wrong_ with you? You're _paranoid_! We have to get you _out_ of there! The house in Malibu...”

“Is yours, remember? It's got your name on the deed.”

“Well go there anyway.” Yabber-yabber, yah-yah-yah. Her noise is sort of a dim buzzing in his ear. Tony's up, and he's in the kitchen getting another beer out of the fridge. Sometimes the phone is at his ear, and sometimes it's down around his neck, but it doesn't matter. It's not important if he hears her. 

“...Something-something Loki...”

Beers are at the very back of the fridge. Have to bend over and reach way far back. “What was that about Loki?” 

“...Something not at ...house in Malibu...”

No, Loki's _not_ at the Malibu house, is he? Just for a minute, Tony thinks about the house. He thinks about the pound-pound-pound of the surf on the rocks outside, that he can even hear over his welding torch, down in the workroom. He thinks about You and Dummy, shut off and gathering dust for how many months now? A sudden impulse goes through him just to grab them both and hug them. – God, wouldn't that hurt though! All those sharp edges, and pokey-things...

By leaning back, Tony can just about hook a beer out with his toe. “You through, Pep?”

“ _What_?!?”

“I said, are you finished?” – There, he's got one. He pops it open and takes a long drink. – “I've got some things I need to do.”

The door to the bedroom opens and out comes the thing he needs to do. Impeccable timing there, Princey-boy. 

“What, Tony? What are you doing?”

Loki yawns like a cat. He's all soft hair, and pink, open mouth. “Are we going out, Tony?”

“Yeah, there, sorry. Can't talk, Pep. Busy.” A click of the phone and the voice is gone. No more Pepper, no more annoyingness. In the doorway, Loki's like a kitten, a fluffy, soft kitten, under a cloud of dark hair. “Did you know it's 3:00 PM, Loki?”

Wide, irritated green eyes. “It's what?”

“It's 3:00 PM. Pepper just told me. Who goes out at 3:00 PM?”

Bitten, black-painted Loki-nails burrow through his hair. Soft, pink Loki-lips brush his face. “What else would we do?”

This isn't a problem. How could it be a problem? – Why _would_ it be a problem? The problem is the people who are making it be a problem.

“Sofa?” he says.

“Bed,” says Loki.

“There lube left?” Because Loki still hasn't given up his Asgardian prejudice.

“Plenty.”

In the background, there's a little crunch-crunch-crunching sound, that's the rabbit, nibbling its pellets. It goes away all right though, when he shuts the bedroom door.


	5. Loki's Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ..Or maybe he should blame this one on Little Tony.

So that's, like, a day ago, right? And they're at Louie's. And Louie's is still okay. The paps haven't found him yet, and the drunk in the corner hasn't started throwing condoms at them, and their booth in the corner is still far enough away that they can ignore the jukebox. And Loki's crawling all over him, like he does when they're in public. Why does he do it? It doesn't make sense. Who's going to see him that he cares about? Sometimes Tony pictures Thor coming in. – Impossible, right? Isn't he back in Asgard? – _He'd_ react. It'd wipe that smile he's always wearing _right_ off his face. Maybe that's the idea?

...So Loki's very busy taking revenge on somebody that's a couple of realms away and won't notice. And Tony's feeling him, the gorgeous warmth of his body against his own, and the soft silkiness of his hair under his fingers. ...And the jukebox is this teeny drone-drone-drone that he can tune out if he wants to. Only it's “Burning Down the House,” right now, so he won't.

And he's thinking about houses. They're all over. There's his parents' vacation house on St. Croix: He still owns that one, right? And there's the Malibu house that's, like, Pepper's alimony -- ...Along with his company. ...And his life. ...Only people aren't supposed to even get alimony unless they were married. – He had that one built. His parents' house used to be there, the one that looked like Mike Brady's house, only with more brown shag and sunken living rooms. It's like karma, that he doesn't have it any more. He should have left the old house standing.

It's hard to feel too bad about it though, because it's hard to feel too bad about anything. That's the anesthetizing effects of... – How many is it? Four? – ...Of _some_ gin-and-tonics (Loki's had an effect on him), probably. Although that doesn't explain why he doesn't feel much of anything when he's sober any more, either.

He's okay just staying here. The rats are still running their race right outside. Somewhere, The Avengers are doing something, and Pep's still captaining her corporate empire (that used to be his). What's the point of him going out and doing anything? Who's there left to impress?

And Loki's mouth calls him back, Loki's tongue, that tastes like mint in his mouth (Loki's moved past G/T's and is drinking mojitos now). And it's awkward in the booth, where his hardon starts hurting inside his pants if they go too far, but then his ass hurts from the wooden seat of the goddamn booth, when he tries to slide down and get comfortable. And besides, Loki never knows when to stop.

“Shall I blow you in here?” Soft whisper of mint-scented breath right up against his ear. At least he's not being fuckin' _loud_ about it, right?

“Right here?”

Nod of a head with messy, dark hair, a sly smile spreading across his goddamn Trickster-face. 

“In the booth?”

“Mmm, if I am willing to kneel before a mortal, why do you fret about the location?”

Just the sound of it is making his dick squirm like a puppy looking for Momma. He fuckin' _aches_ , and if it isn't here, it better be somewhere goddamn close... – Put it shortly here, Little Tony's already made the decision for him.

Loki's snicker is another puff of air on his face. “I thought so.”

They're not big booths. And Loki is not a short guy. For a minute, Tony's afraid he's going to stay _right out in the open_ , right there in the aisle maybe, where everyone can see him. But no, thank god: Under the table he crawls, and then there's the tickle-tickle of cold Frost Giant fingers, trying to undo Tony's pants-button.

Tony's quick to help him. Zip go his pants, and Little Tony jumps. “Yay,” you can picture him saying, “I'm free!” If he did say it though, he wouldn't get far, because no sooner is he _out_ of the pants, but he's _in_ Loki's mouth. ...In his slippery, slide-y mouth, that you always think the reason it's cold is because of the ice in his drink, and he's got you halfway to ecstasy before you remember it's because he's a Frost Giant.

Loki's hands on his hips: Tony slides his ass forward so more of him will go into his mouth. He's going to be fuckin' sore when they're done with this, but does he care? Does Little Tony? 

Loki can take all of him in there. He tried telling Tony why one time: Something about always losing on the practice-field when he was growing up, and apparently Asgardians like their hazing. Tony wasn't really paying attention. He's good anyway, that's what matters. He takes Tony right down to his _balls_. – He could probably get his balls in there too, only at this angle, Tony can't get 'em out of his pants. And sucking? Good Christ, but the guy can suck.

So it takes as far as his zipper going down, and Tony's forgotten where they are, and that anybody might see them. He's forgotten everything except the feel of it, and how fast he's getting ready to explode. Somebody walks by, and they're just a shadow that falls on the table for a minute. They don't say anything though; they don't even stop, so probably they don't notice anything.

“Loki...” His hands go down to tangle in his dark hair. Fuckin' _nothing_ better make him move away right now. “L-Loki, harder!”

Faint, muffled chuckle comes from under the table, and the sucking is as hard as ever. Tony's ass is bouncing around, so he's surprised the seat isn't moving. _They must bolt 'em down,_ he thinks vaguely, followed by the corollary: _We must not be the only ones that do this._

When he shoots, he does his best to be quiet. Loki goes at him like a vacuum. He _Hoovers_ him, you might say. Everything goes down, gulp, gulp, gulp, and then everything that's left goes away, lick, lick, lick. After that, there's those cold hands at his pants-fastenings again. Followed by a shove. “Close your own damn pants,” Loki says, crawling out from under the table. “I can't make the zipper work.”

Tony takes a long, deep breath. Then he closes his damn pants. One thing for sure anyway, he's not thinking about houses any more. Or anything else, for that matter.


	6. Tony's Life Has a Fault-Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're going to have to avoid Louie's for a while. Also Pepper wants him to do a press conference.

Well, he wakes up to find out he's got a bit of a paparazzi-problem. Apparently Loki isn't _quite_ as subtle as he likes to think he is, about giving people under-the-table B/J's (which probably also means it would be a good idea to avoid Louie's for a while). Tony's sound asleep with his arms around Loki, and dreaming about bringing circuit boards to his Mommy so she can hug him. Then screech-screech-screech goes his cell phone, right in his ear.

It's Pepper. “The tabloids,” she says. “Have you _seen_ the tabloids this morning, Tony?”

Of course he hasn't seen the tabloids. It's the middle of the night... – No, it's morning. Who looks at the tabloids first thing in the morning?

“You know I read _Engadget_. Then I check stock prices...”

“You can't go on _living_ like this,” Pepper shrieks. “Loki's bad for you... – Your whole life right now is bad for you.”

His life. His life right now. Loki's a lump of blankets, topped with messy dark hair, next to him. For two cents, Tony would just hang up on goddamn Pepper and go back to sleep next to him. 

“I had a life, Pep.” There's a vodka bottle on the bedside table. There are also a couple of coffee cups. Worst part of the day: It's too early to drink, and it's too early to get up and make some goddamn coffee too. “ _We_ had a life. It was a really good one. Then I brought that damn rabbit home, and you left. – Listen, you want a rabbit?”

She doesn't. She didn't want one to begin with, that's why she left. He should have bought a dog. “The _tabloids_ , Tony? ...Prestige of the company...” –

“ _Your_ company.”

“Tony, don't be that way. You _are_ Stark Enterprises.”

He _was_ Iron Man. He's not really much of anything any more, now. --

“You have to do a press conference.”

“Oh, fuck no.”

“Seriously. Tomorrow, 10:00 AM, at corporate headquarters. You'd better be there.”

He doesn't have to talk to her, he discovers. Tony puts his Stark-phone on the bedside table, and Pep's voice fades to a teeny-tiny buzz. He pokes Loki because he likes him better. “Wakey-wakey, Sunshine.”

One evil green eye, looks out at him from under the pillow. “Go away.”

Tony snuggles down close. “I've got a press conference tomorrow.” 

Loki's muffled voice from under the covers. “A what?”

It's too early. What time is it, anyway? Tony squints at his watch. 10:30. Yep, too early. Time to go back to sleep.

“Big meeting,” he says. “You get everyone together. Talk to 'em. Tell 'em stuff.”

The phone's still buzzing. Tony puts it on speaker. Pepper's voice: “Tony? ... _Tony_???”

Loki's head against his chest is cozy. His hair smells like Tony's shampoo. “What stuff?”

Good question. “Tell 'em I'm Tony Stark, and I can't get over my girlfriend leaving me, and my life doesn't make sense any more.” 

“Tony?” From the phone. “What was that, Tony?”

“Tell 'em the only time I don't hurt is when I'm drunk off my ass, or when I'm fucking the psycho alien who tried to take over the Earth last year.”

Loki's snort. “Don't blame this on me.”

“You're the one that got me in the tabloids.”

He's the one that let him though. And before that, he's the one that let him into his apartment... – Into his goddamn _life_. – And before that, it was his fault, and before that, it was Pepper's fault, then his, then her's again, in this long line of fault-taking that goes all the way back through his whole life. It's a fault line. His life has a fault line. No wonder it's breaking apart.

Who should he blame it on? Vaguely, he hears Pepper talking. What's she saying? “Pick up... Tony, _talk_ to me.” He'll blame it on her. 

“It's your fault, Pep,” he says. “Loki and I decided.”

Squawk-squawk: “Loki? _What_?!?”

“Hey Pep, I've got a good idea.” It's practically lunchtime, so what the hell, right? He grabs the bottle off the table and takes a drink. Grey Goose actually tastes really foul, lukewarm. “Not a press conference. We'll do a wrestling match, you and me against Loki. He's a Frost Giant. He can totally take both of us.” Pepper gives an irritated hiss, and he hangs up on her. 

“Listen...” He looks over at Loki. “You ever think of just dying and getting it over with?”


	7. If They Gave a Press Conference and Nobody Showed Up, It Wouldn't be This One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fuckin' Pepper is always taking peoples' rights away.

There are certain rights that come along with being an American. There's free speech for example. And there's freedom of the press... The one Pepper violates, is that if you don't want to do a press conference, you don't have to do a goddamn press conference. And she doesn't just violate it... She runs over it with a fuckin' _Mack Truck_. It's like “Oh Tony, you think _you_ know what's best for you? It is only I, Pepper fuckin' goddamn Potts, who know what is best for anyone, in the entire goddamn world, but especially for you. I am basically the expert on what is best for you, Tony.”

See, here's how it goes: After what happened at Louie's, he and Loki are pretty much stuck finding somewhere else to hang out. So that's what they do that night, is they start checking out all the other dive bars in Manhattan. And the Bronx. ...And maybe a few on the Lower East Side. This takes most of the evening. It also takes some hours of the early morning. If you think they got home early, in other words? You'd be mistaken.

They also might not have been entirely sober. ...So they get home kind of late, is the summary here. – They take a cab home... -- See, Pepper? _Responsible_. -- And they basically crash as soon as they get in the door. They make it to the bed. ...He thinks. He can’t actually say for sure, because when he wakes up, he’s on the floor of the bathroom.

And what wakes him up, is his _phone_ , which is screaming in his ear again, with that special (specially annoying) ring tone that Pep chose for herself on the Stark Store. -- _Lionel Ritchie_. He should have known then, right? -- So if he’d thought about it, he’d have let it go to voicemail, but who really thinks about these things at ...At whatever hour it is that she’s calling (8:00 AM)? So instead, he thumbs the phone on.

“Who’s there?”

Instant loud yelling noise right by his ear: “TONY YOU HAVE TO GET UP RIGHT NOW YOU HAVE A PRESS CONFERENCE IN TWO HOURS.”

“I was up.” He thinks he says. Or maybe “I’m sorry.” Or “Thanks for calling, Pep. He can’t remember exactly. What he _remembers_ , is making a mental note to get the hell out of the apartment in plenty of time before she sends somebody to get him, and then waking up to this loud banging noise coming from the somewhere around the living room.

The front door, actually. Happy’s standing there with a guilty look on his face. “Pepper says I have to drive you to Corporate _right now_.”

There’s something about looking Happy in the face when you have a hangover: It’s different with Pepper, because she’s the reason he’s been drinking more than usual in the first place. But Hap has this _sad_ look he gets on his face... -- Only it’s not just sad, it’s sort of confused as well. -- It always makes Tony feel like the world’s biggest asshole (which is probably why Pepper always sends _him_ ).

“I can give you ten minutes,” Happy says. “We can still get there in time if you’re ready in ten minutes.”

On with the pants, and a clean shirt off the floor. Wake up Pretty-Mary-Frost-Giant so he can go with him. -- If Tony’s going, he’s fuckin’ not going alone. -- The minibar’s still in the back of the limo, and it’s still stocked with Stoli the way it’s supposed to be. Cute, tiny-little airline bottles that are barely a mouthful each (because if there’s one thing he _hates_ , it’s opened bottles). Tony drinks a couple just to take the edge off the hangover. 

So everyone’s in the reception room at Corporate Headquarters. All the press and shit, a lot of people he remembers talking to before. ...And a few he remembers fucking. Pepper’s there in one of those carved-ice, perfect suits she likes. The jacket’s cut tight to show that waist of hers, and the skirt’s slit halfway up her thigh.

“Tony.” When did her voice get cold like that, he remembers thinking? Also, _why_ did her voice get cold like that? ...And no more words, she just gestures to the podium. And she gives him this look... He’d like to give her a look that was halfway as evil as that, but somewhere along the line he seems to have forgotten how.

So he looks over at Reindeer Games instead. Loki didn’t have time to brush his hair that morning (and with as much hair as he has, it really _shows_ ), but he’s beautiful. He’s tall and thin, and his arms are folded. and those perfect dark eyebrows of his are drawn down over his gorgeous green eyes. Just for a minute, Tony catches his eye, and it’s enough to make the tears start. They could be home in bed now, he thinks. He could be hearing someone’s heartbeat in his ear; he could have someone’s warm body close-by to stabilize his. Instead, he’s here, and everyone’s watching. And there’s Pepper.

But all the natural, normal things, you always say at a press conference, come back to him of course. “Thank you for coming out today,” he says. “I was told there were some questions. You wanted an update about my status.” --

His _status_! Jesus Christ, what is that, even? --

“There was some talk that I was seeing someone I maybe shouldn’t be seeing....” --

_Loki_ , in other words. He shouldn’t be seeing Loki. Tony looks over at him again. -- And you know, it’s funny: He used to think Loki looked evil, but he doesn’t look evil any more. What he looks like now... Well, he looks like home, is what he looks like. -- So Tony looks over at him. And then he decides, well, fuck it, he just can’t do it any more. All that about making Stark Enterprises look good, and all the other happy crappy: He’s done pretending any of it makes sense.

So he waves a hand, sort of pointing toward Pepper. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, “I’d like to introduce someone. You’ve probably met her. This is Pepper Potts, CEO of this fine corporation. You see her? She’s a great looking woman, isn’t she? You know this bitch broke my heart?” --

...Okay, here’s where the rest gets complicated. Loki _swears_ he started crying then, and begged Pepper to take him back. He told him that in the cab, all the way to Gino’s (which is their new favorite hangout, only a little out of the way, just over the bridge in Brooklyn), and he laughed that bastard-laugh of his. Tony didn’t. He’d remember a thing like that if he’d done it, wouldn’t he? Besides, _Tony Stark does not beg_.

He did tell her that she’d missed the biggest fuckin’ deal of her life by dumping him. That’s just fact, there’s nothing pathetic about stating facts. He probably also mentioned that he still has controlling interest in the company (also fact). He may have pointed out that he’s a fuckin’ genius, and he’ll invent things that’ll set her up for life, if she just treats him right. _Facts_ , is what he told her in other words, nothing but pure, simple facts. No crying, no begging, just cold, hard facts. 

Later on, Loki laughs at him some more for being so needy, and Tony throws him out of the bedroom. “You’ll let me back in.” Frost Giant-Princess gives him an evil look. “Nobody else will have a pathetic drunken has-been like you.”

Later on after that, Tony goes to open the door for him. because the empty bed feels so cold. Loki’s asleep on the sofa (which is too small for both of them; they’ve tried), so he crashes on the reclining chair where he can at least hear him breathing.


	8. Why It Doesn't Do to Punch Out Citizen Journalists in Manhattan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Choices are starting to run out for him, but Tony still doesn't want to put that whole "dying" think into motion, not yet, anyway.

After that, things start happening pretty fast. And the first thing Tony remembers, is waking up to hear Loki's voice.

“I don't think I actually can die, Tony.”

And he thinks, who was it who talked about dying? Oh yeah, it was him. 

“What makes you say so?” 

Standard Asgard-stuff: Papa's magical powers. Golden apples from some orchard or another. Besides, he fell into an abyss, if he was able to die, wouldn't he have done it then? – An “abyss”. _Love_ that Asgardian lingo! –

“We don't have to die right now,” Tony says. “We could do it later, maybe do some other stuff instead.” He's thinking about his parents' beach house for some reason, about how it's far away from New York, where all the reporters are going to be hunting for them for a while now... About how they won't be so close to Gino's there, and maybe it's a good idea if they cut back on the drinking anyway.

Instantly, Loki turns on him. “You're not backing out of this?”

Backing out? That's the first he knew, that they had any kind of a deal. He's not actually sure that the guy enforcing something like this, should be the one who might not be able to die himself.

“No, sure, 'course not, Loki.”

Only it's too late. Mr. Grumpy-Pants is up already, and stalking into the bedroom. Tony hears the door slam.

He doesn't go after him, because you know, see Begging. And Not Doing It, Mr. Tony Stark. After a while he goes in there though, because it's hot in the front room, and the smell of the rabbit crap is too strong.

“Okay, if it's so important to you...”

Loki leans back against him, so his head's on Tony's shoulder. “It's not.” His breath makes little puffs of air against Tony's cheek. His hair's against Tony's nose, and it still smells like his shampoo. Tony doesn't want to think what his own hair smells like. “Not if you don't want to.”

“I want to.” He's not sure if he really does want to. What does it mean, to die? Just to ...not wake up (which would be good)? But what if it hurts? And the engineer-part of his brain, that he almost thought had gone for good, kicks in, and he's thinking of ways you could die and have it _not_ hurt. Like if you got going, driving fast enough, and you just slammed into a wall. Or you steered straight into oncoming traffic. ...Like... Does carbon monoxide poisoning hurt?

Loki's saying something. He missed the start of it. “Blah blah, something... – Not sure how to keep going any more.”

Yeah. That makes sense. Loki's warm body against his, feels good. He has a can of beer in his hand, from the six-pack on the bedside table. It's probably as warm as his body, from no refrigeration. Tony grabs his wrist and snags it, and takes a drink himself. It's pretty hot all right. “No one's asking you to keep going.”

Two warm bodies, in the quiet bedroom. From the living room, Tony hears the faint bang-bang-bang, that's his goddamn rabbit, biting the bars of its cage. Loki takes his beer back. “The alcohol makes it easier.” --

It does that all right, that's for sure. –

What time is it, Tony thinks? And he looks at the window, but they've got a blanket over the blinds, so no light will come in, and so of of course, no light does come in for him to tell by. He looks at his watch.

“It's afternoon.”

“Yes,” Loki says. “That's what happens when you close a bar and then come home to sleep it off.”

Which they did after the press conference yesterday. Gino's is ...not as good of a hangout as he was hoping it would be. Too many people who have heard of him, there. Didn't stop them from staying until closing time, though.

Tony snags a beer off the bedside table. They can cut down the drinking later on, right now he's got a hangover. He pops the top and drinks some foam.

“That means we can go out.”

This doesn't turn out to be the best idea in the world. Because see, they _don't_ have a hangout picked for them to go out to. He searches “dive bars” on Yelp, and gets a couple names, but they're all too crowded, and too noisy. And then when they're leaving the third one, that's when some asshole with a camera turns up and shoves a microphone into his face.

“Tony Stark, would you care to comment on what happened at your press conference yesterday?”

Goddamn asshole isn't a real reporter. Nowadays the Internet makes everyone think they can be a reporter and get their damn 15 minutes of fame. “Citizen Journalists,” they call themselves. Well this is one Citizen Fuckin' Journalist who gets what's coming to him (and proves that Tony Stark can still throw a punch, thank you very much ladies and gentlemen).

It's right after that, that the cops show up, and Tony's handcuffed and shoved into the back of a squad car like he's just anyone. He doesn't see what happened to Loki, but once he's booked and he gets his one phone call, he uses it on him, and goddamn Loki won't pick up the goddamn Stark-phone Tony gave him.

And then it's not Happy who comes down to bail him out that evening. No, this time, Pepper sends _Rhodey_.

“What happened?”

Good question. “You know that's a damn good question?”

“Pepper's worried about you, Tony.”

_Pepper_. “Yeah, right.”

“ _I'm_ worried about you.” 

“Everyone keeps talking about me being with Loki. Well excuse me, I'm a grown man here. I'm entitled to be with whoever I want. Loki's okay. He doesn't have his powers any more, he's not any threat to anybody...” –

“We want you to go to rehab, Tony. You can't go on drinking like this. There's this place in Pennsylvania, Pepper showed me the website...”

Pepper. _Again_. “Rehab. Totally not happening.” He doesn't look at Rhodey's face. – it's like he _can't_ look at his face, like it's physically impossible for his eyes to go up there and look at him. So he looks at his own goddamn knees in his goddamn orange jumpsuit instead. – “Maybe if there was a rehab for recovering when evil women dump you. I might consider going to that one.”

“You have to, Tony.”

Turns out Pepper's latest “big favor” is she made a deal with the fuckin' Citizen Journalist: Tony “agrees to get help,” – This is the weasel-way they put it, he _agrees to get help_ : Like he's on the fuckin' Nancy Grace Show. – and little Mr. Citizen Journalist doesn't press charges. She's already pitched it to the cops, and they're on board, so basically he doesn't have a choice. It's either rehab in Pennsylvania, or jail in NYC, and whichever one he chooses, he's going there tomorrow.


	9. Tony is "Untrustworthy", and Loki is a "Relapse Trigger"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One half of the matched pair sets off for Pennsylvania, and he has to leave the other half alone, where he can get broken.

“They're sending me to rehab.”

Tony was halfway afraid Loki wouldn't be there when he got home (which was _really_ late, because for some reason it was apparently essential that they drag him into a courtroom, for a _judge_ to lecture him, even though he'd already agreed to the goddamn rehab). He's there, and he's not even asleep. Tony comes in, and he looks up at him, and there are dark hollows under his green eyes.

“What is 'rehab'?”

The bed's a magnet. It pulls Tony over, and he sits down and his arms go around Loki's warm body, and his lips find the soft place at the back of his neck. “Court thing. They lock you up and you can't drink for 30 days.”

Soft, contemptuous little Loki-snort. “I can't see _you_ without a drink.”

Tony can't see himself without a Loki. His heartbeat is finding Loki's, and they're coming together again, and the smell of Loki's shampoo is starting to get rid of the jail-stink that was in his nostrils. “Come with me.”

“Why?”

Vague gesture. There's bottles on the bedside table; there's cans all over the floor. You can't take a step any more without tripping on something, and all their favorite hangouts are kicking them out. “You want to stay here?”

Instant jerk away, and the Loki that's looking at him is suddenly evil. “ _Here_? As in Midgard? I don't want to stay in _life_ any more Tony.”

Evil!Loki is soft and warm. “No, but seriously.” Evil!Loki's hair smells good, and his skin tastes good. “We've still got some choices. – Come with me, Loki. I don't want you dead.” 

“We had an agreement, Tony.” Evil!Loki has a nerve to say that, when he can't even die. – Can he? -- He gets up and he leaves, and he doesn't come back to bed and cuddle Tony, he doesn't even stay in the goddamn apartment. And Tony can't go after him, because he has to go to fuckin' rehab in the morning. And he spends an hour, wondering where he's gone. Then he spends two more hours, calling all their favorite places to see if he's there. – He's not. – And then he gives up and grabs a bottle, because if Loki's going to be gone, at least he doesn't need to be up all night worrying about him.

And then when he feels a hand on his shoulder and he looks up, it's not Loki. It's Rhodey, because the so-precious, so-helpful apartment manager gave him a key. And Tony's got a bourbon bottle under his head for a pillow, which is not his best look. “Good morning sunshine?”

“I can give you half an hour,” Rhodey says.

That awkward feeling when you're in the bathroom ~~puking your guts out~~ showering and feeling like crap, and your best friend is packing your shit up for you in the bedroom: “This your suitcase?” Tony hears over the running water.

“No, that's Loki's.”

Confused noise of surprise, from the bedroom.

“Louis Vuitton's an Asgardian company, seriously, didn't you know that?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Tony wishes he hadn't stuck his head out the door to talk to him, because now he's treated to the horrible sight of sadness and hope, all mixed together on Rhodey's face, like maybe he hadn't realized Tony could joke. ...Like he hadn't realized he was still human enough or something. What the fuck was he supposed to be doing? Staggering around and falling on his ass?

Shower-shower-shower. Gotta wash the jail-stink out of his hair. He's out of shampoo, so he grabs Loki's. Now he's got Loki's smell on him... – Jesus Christ, at least he's got _something_ of his.”

Rhodey's voice: “Is the Iron Maiden shirt clean?”

“I dunno. Does it matter?” Towel-towel-towel. Tony snakes a hand back into the shower and grabs the Loki-shampoo. “Put it in anyway. I have to have _clothes_.” Into the bedroom, and he dumps the shampoo-bottle into the suitcase. That's one little piece of Loki they can't take away from him.

Finger-comb the hair. Wish like fuck he hadn't been “too busy” to get it cut for, like, the last six weeks or so. “Can you get your hair cut in rehab?”

Shrugged shoulders. “I dunno.” That terrible, sad look is still all over Rhodey's face, that look that says “where's the Tony I thought I was friends with?” ...That makes him feel like a major shit. “Listen, I'm sorry Tony. You know I don't like forcing you to do stuff.”

_Shut up, oh god, shut up!_ There's the toothbrush. There's the toothpaste. – His toothpaste? Loki's toothpaste? He grabs both of them, just in case. – ...There's a bottle of vodka on the bathroom counter. Tony looks away.

“You _need_ this,” Rhodey can't seem to get by without saying. “Honest man, I'm scared for you.”

“La-la-la-la, can't hear you.” There's half a six-pack on the chest of drawers. There's another bottle of vodka by the bed. Loki's going to come home and he's going to find them all still there, – He _will_ come home, won't he? – because Tony doesn't want to show up at rehab with booze on his breath. ...Even though he feels like shit. “Listen, can we stop by McDonalds and get breakfast on the way up? Probably be the last decent food I get for a month.” ...Even though he can't imagine eating anything.

“Sure Tony, sure.” Clasp-clasp of the locks on the suitcase. Up it goes in one big Rhodey-hand while, on the other side of the room, Tony's slipping into his sneakers, and shoving his cell phone into his pocket. “You ready?”

A nod. He's ready. Might as well be, what's his choice? ...Then there's the drive. Long. And silent. Then there's the hospital. At the top of a large mountain (with a bar at the bottom, like some weird, disturbing circle-of-life). Then there's the horrible moment when he finds out that first, he's going to be in a hospital bed for three days with IV's in both arms, and Rhodey's still right there when they tell him.

Then there's the three days. Detox, they call it. He _doesn't_ have convulsions. This is the only good thing that happens. He's not allowed to make phone calls, not that he cares, because who would he call? ...Well, there's Loki. He'd call Loki (since the little shit can't be bothered to call him, with the Stark-phone that _he_ gave him). He asks a few times, but the answer is always “no.” – He tells them that Loki's a suicide-risk, and they still say “no.” He is, apparently, “untrustworthy”, and Loki is a “relapse-trigger”, who might “endanger his recovery”.


	10. Tony's Spiffy Diary of Being in Rehab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This useful list of ~~bullshit~~ perfectly normal rehab-experiences should come in handy for anyone else who has to go through the same experience.

**Number One:** No cell phones. So he gets out of detox, and he's like, “Oh, you seem to have forgotten to return my Stark-phone.” And they're like, “I'm sorry Mr. Stark, clients don't get phone privileges for the first two weeks they're here.” This is presumably to keep people from checking out early, because why else would anybody put a stupid rule like that in place? They're probably thinking, “Mwa-ha-ha, this way we get _two whole weeks_ to make AA/NA clones out of all of them, before their friends get any contact.” This is of course, a lot of bullshit, because there's phones for sale on every fuckin' corner, out in the real world, even in little country places like Ass-Fuck, Pennsylvania, or whatever the hell this place is called. Tony wonders sometimes if there's ever been anybody that snuck out of here and tried to bring an unauthorized phone in. Probably not though; they would have gotten distracted by the bar at the bottom of the hill.

~~Tony, by the way, is _not distracted_ by the bar, not even by the thought of the bar. _Anybody_ can make it through 30 days of not drinking.~~

**Number Two:** Lots of meetings. Daily meetings. Meetings that last for hours. Fun fact: Listening to some guy sharing about “what caused my addiction” is interesting for about five minutes, which is actually better than most of the corporate meetings he's gone to. Another fun fact? They make everybody share.

_Sharing_ , by the way, seems to be defined in terms of minutes. “Pepper...” His first morning, the first day out of detox, and they ask (AKA _tell_ ) him to share. “My evil ex-girlfriend caused my addiction,” he says, and he gets ready to sit back down. Way at the back of the room, somebody says “Yeah, I heard that!” But Group Facilitator-Guy, that's running the whole thing, says, “That's not a sufficient answer, Mr. Stark.” And makes him talk for another 20 minutes.

**Number Three:** Mornings. Has he mentioned mornings yet? As in, Getting Up In The? This place has fucking meetings, at seven-the-fuck-thirty, in the goddamn morning. – You know what? Forget what he said earlier. These are worse than corporate meetings, which at least start at normal times, _human_ times like 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon (they do if they want Tony Stark at them, anyway). -- These start at _seven-fucking-thirty_ in the A.M.; do you know what time that means you have to get up?

~~Not that he's got too much to keep him in bed, because no Loki.~~ Okay, so basically what this means is that you have to get up at goddamn 6:00 or something. And they're like, “That shouldn't be hard for you Mr. Stark, because you weren't drinking last night.” And he's like, “Get the hell out of here, you goddamn bitch-lady, before I rip your fuckin' head off.” And who even knew there were privileges you could lose (for being “rude to the staff”)? It's not like he'd seen any goddamn _privileges_ , since he got here.

**Number Four:** Celebrities. Sub-Heading: Lots of Them. As in this place apparently caters to celebrities by the thousands. They are supposed to be everywhere. ~~And he has _seen Beyonce here_! And Kim fuckin' Khardashian. Hap, you will not believe it, chick's ass looks as hot in real life as it does in the pictures, and it's only getting hotter and curvier from all the delicious, fattening rehab-food they keep serving. You have totally got to come visit, _right now_ , seriously, she might go home any minute! ...And why not swing by the apartment first so you can bring Loki. ...Or at least so you can say if he's there.~~ No, but seriously folks? _He's_ the celebrity. As in, “Oh mom, yes. I'm at the same rehab Mr. Tony Stark is at.” As in, wow, that must really make Mommy feel better about that $35,000 she paid to send you here, kid.

**Number Five:** Stuff to do. As in, Not Enough Of. So, you only get like five minutes to yourself during the day, how hard can it be to fill five fuckin' minutes? That would be pretty goddamn hard, actually. There is a room with a TV (always full of annoying little children watching Glee). There is another room with a ping-pong table and a soda machine in it. There is also an Art Room. So that's where Tony goes, because hey, Art, that's, like, a little like making stuff in his workroom ~~(that Bitch-Pepper stole)~~ , right? ...So he goes in, and he doesn't _see_ any metal or welding tools or anything, but you pay 35K to get sent here, right? They must have more supplies than are out.

...Only not so much. So he goes in, and he's like, “Okay, you got any metal?” And they're like, “We have some _very nice_ paints; wouldn't you like to make a painting of what it feels like to _give in to your addiction_ , Mr. Stark?” And he's like, “I'm fuckin' _Iron Man_ , maybe you've heard of me? I work in fuckin' metal.” He did not tell them what they could do with their goddamn _paints_ , even though he wanted to, which ought to count for something in terms of restraint, you'd think. Apparently not though, and that's how he ends up losing more privileges he hadn't noticed he even had yet.

~~**Number Six:** Loki. To be filed under, Not Here. Or under Where Is He, maybe? Or under, Is He Still Alive? You know, no matter how many times you say, “Get hold of yourself Stark, Loki can't die, remember, he's Asgardian,” it doesn't help, it really fuckin' doesn't help. Because how the fuck are you going to know for sure unless you check (and then if he does die, it'll be too late)? And besides, Asgardians have to be able to die, don't they? Isn't that what Valhalla is; it's the place they go when they die? ...If Loki died, would he go to Valhalla, or is there someplace else they send you when you're evil? Some _worse_ kind of a place, like a Hell or something? Is Tony stuck in this goddamn hellhole getting recovered, and meanwhile Loki's already in Asgardian-Hell?~~

**Number ~~Seven~~ Six:** “Recovery Plans”. File under, You Have to Have One. What he needs, is a workroom. And a lot of metal. And some equipment. And maybe some _really primitive_ robots to help out with little jobs, like cleaning the floor and ~~bringing him martinis~~ making him smoothies. No, scratch that: What he _needs_ is his workroom back. Tony's first idea was that a good, high-powered lawyer could probably sue Pepper's goddamn lying-bitch ass and get it back from her. Then he deleted that one, because revenge-fantasies are “not good for recovery” (fat-ass Mr. Group Facilitator-Guy says so). So he's going to go to Pepper and ask her really nicely, “Please, my dear, darling ~~ex-girlfriend/slut/bitch-cunt~~ friend, won't you please be a sweetie and give me my house back, which used to belong to my parents, so technically speaking it ought to be mine ~~and I should never have let you get your goddamn mitts on it anyway~~ no matter what the deed says?” And she will _of course, undoubtedly,_ say, “Oh, Tony, Tony, your reasoning moves me to the bottom of my ~~blackened/shriveled/Grinch-like~~ heart. Here, my dear friend, here is the deed _right now_.”

Please note: Recovery Plans do not have to be based in reality. In fact, if you put too much reality in them, people look at you funny, then they send you back to the table to write another one.

**Number Seven:** The bar at the bottom of the hill. As in, Tony Doesn't Need It. There is nothing to do here, nothing. And nobody cares; they're, like, literally on-record as not caring. “Everybody goes through the same thing, Mr. Stark,” they say. And, “It's part of the experience. You have what is known as an 'addictive personality', and it's going to take time for you to find new ways to fill the time.” And he looks around, and everyone else just looks sort of bland and blank. They're, like, eating, and sleeping, and going to meetings and shit. Where is all this _shared experience_ of which they speak? Which of these nobodies with the blank faces is it who's supposedly feeling all the same things he's feeling?

And sometimes he thinks, why not just give up? Who's he doing this for anyway? It's not like _he_ cares if he's drinking or not. It's not like it's ever slowed his work ~~(What work?)~~ down, or gotten in his way with his friends. Why's he doing this? Who's he trying to impress? It's not like Loki will care ~~(or is even still alive to notice)~~. And he thinks, why not just do what his body wants to do? Why not leave, go down the hill and get a drink, then he can decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life afterward?

And then he tells himself “No.” It's just 30 days, anyone can give up drinking for 30 days. ...Probably. ...At least if they had something else to do with the time. ~~And if they had a cell phone, so they could find out what was up with their boyfriend.~~


	11. Little-Tony is Not a Good Adviser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So he went two weeks without a bad decision, which is a record. So this is not the worst decision he's ever made either, after all, he's not going into Ass-Fuck Pennsylvania to _drink_

So he's been there two weeks, and all of a sudden Loki shows up. It's afternoon, and they're doing, you know, afternoon-shit. The stuff you do when you're not drinking. Or talking to people about recovery. Or doing whatever. They days manage to go by some way, it's not like you just sit around and go nuts with the time passing the _whole_ time; some of it's okay. ...So he's outside with some of the others. They're on the porch, and the sun's got that long look it gets sometime in between lunch and dinner. And then he looks up and Loki's there.

And the sun's making a halo against his hair, which needs to be combed in the worst possible way, but Tony's not going to complain about _that_. And he's up, and he's over there, and he's like, “Loki?!? Where the fuck have you been?”

Loki's been drinking, you can smell it on him. If they were going to keep him from visiting because of that, they'd already have done it though, right? He's here, he's got to have checked in with somebody to get here. And he frowns. – And it's not Tony's imagination, no, it's not: His lip trembles, and his eyes get big and dark and there's sadness in them, and he missed him, he missed him too. – “Your _facility_ would not allow visitors until now.”

So he wanted to come before. Something in Tony's chest feels like it un-clenches. 

Loki gestures around the porch. “ _These_ are the people you have been spending your time with?”

There's three girls on the porch who have hit on him just in the past 24 hours, because you know, ooh, _Iron Man_ , ooh, Tony _Stark_ , ohmygod. And one of them's not that bad, he might almost have banged her, even knowing he'd be going back to Loki as soon as he could, because it's rehab, you get bored. There's this fat stockbroker-guy, and Tony knows every detail about his cocaine addiction, and this seedy guy about his age, who plays good guitar in the lounge after everyone's gone to bed for the night. Tony looks at them, then he looks back at Loki.

“I thought you were dead.”

Contemptuous snort. “ _Dead_.”

“You said you were going to ...you know.”

Cool breeze in their hair while they walk down the steps. Loki's hair smells just the same. _All_ of him smells just the same, and he's still prickly just like he always was. ...And he still feels just the same in Tony's arms, once they're out in the garden and under the trees.

_Is_ he still going to “you know”? Has it been cleared up yet whether Asgardians can “you know”? He was sure about it, but that was two weeks ago, and he's still here. And he doesn't seem any more fucked-up than usual. ...Mind you, that's pretty damn fucked-up.

“How long do you have to stay here?” Loki says.

Shrugging kind of a motion. “Two more weeks?”

An evil green glare. “ _Why_ What is to stop you from leaving?”

Well, nothing. Everybody knows, you can walk out of here any damn time you want to. “If you're not serious about your recovery, you shouldn't be here,” they say, and then they just let you walk the hell in and out whenever you want.

“Loki, you're here, we're together.” God, the smell of him, the feel of him in his arms. The way his own heartbeat just seems to regulate when his body's close. He's not going to “you know”; Tony won't let him. Hey, if the biggest drunk in New York can go two fuckin' weeks without even a beer, anything's possible, right? Hey, nobody would have said building the suit in a cave in goddamn Afghanistan was possible either.

Loki stiffens up again though, as soon as Tony starts talking, and he turns and gives him his same evil-green glare. “ _What is keeping you here?_ ” he says.

This is a question he's had to answer about a million times since he got here. He's finally nailed it down, and he gives Loki the same answer he's been giving everyone else: “I'm not going to get my ass hauled to jail for violating a court order, just because I can't stop drinking for a month.” – He doesn't add that the answer he always gets it, “Oh Mr. Stark, you will have to stop drinking for _much more_ than a month, or else there will be more court orders.” –

Loki turns away. His back's moving just slowly, with his breathing, and Tony can hear his breathing, but he won't turn around, he won't even talk to him.

“I know a place by the lake.” Tony's fingers find tight Asgardian shoulder-muscles. They ...do not soften the way they ought to, as he rubs them. “It's quiet. Nobody sees you if you fuck.”

This, he does not know from personal experience, which has got to be some kind of a record. Two weeks without a fuck? Is this really Tony Stark, you ask? Why? How? ~~(He was waiting for Loki.)~~

After a while, Loki leans back into his touch. And his hair's against Tony's chin, and his voice sounds slower again, the way it's supposed to sound. “Not here.”

Their bodies fit together like they always did. Tony's hands move downward. There's the narrow waist, just a little skinnier than he remembered. There are the hips, and he knows just how those move when Loki's fucking him. There's his ass. -- Tony's going to get inside that ass. All that Asgard-code-of-the-warrior shit's got to crumble sometime. -- ...There's his hardon.

“Not here, no.” He knows exactly how that Asgardian-cock of his tastes. He knows the saltiness of it, and the way Loki's man-musk starts cancelling out the soap from his shower after he's given him a few sucks. And he knows how much better the man-musk is than anything else he's ever smelled. “I told you, didn't I? There's a place by the lake.” – Although he wouldn't mind doing him right here. What's life if you don't take a few chances? Hey, Loki gave him that one blowjob in the restaurant, didn't he? – “This time of day, nobody's ever there.”

The Loki-muscles tighten again. “I said...”

“Not here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” What time is it? 4:00 maybe? And dinner is when? “Two hours...” Tony's so hard he's aching. Little Tony's telling him fuckin' _anybody_ can get down the hill to Ass-Fuck Pennsylvania, and back again in two hours and still have plenty of time to fuck their boyfriend while they're there. Little-Tony's never been a very good adviser.

“You said you can leave any time.” Loki jerks his chin toward the gate. “My taxi's waiting.”

Because what? Because he knew Tony would be so desperate he'd jump at the chance? Because Tony's his bitch, he can do whatever he wants with him? “So go,” he says. “Go get in your taxi and leave.”

And Little-Tony's yelling at him. “ _Blue balls_ ,” he says. “Jesus, Tony!” How many people have told him since he got here, that he has to pick better advisers?

“Leave.” He gestures toward the gate and the taxi. “Don't let the door hit you on your way out.”

And Loki pulls away, and he turns. And right just like that, is when the so-called “good sense” of what he's doing just melts away, and it turns into the world's biggest dumbass move. Hell, what's he doing that's so horrible? It's not like he's leaving to _drink_. And, “Hold up, Loki,” he calls, and Loki does. And then they leave together. And that hardon of his tastes just as good as it ever did, after they get to the hotel and they check in.


	12. ...And As Soon As a Good Adviser Shows Up, Tony Pushes Him Away.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, so when Rhodey shows up at Loki's hotel room, Tony should listen to him, right? He doesn't.

**Note: This is a revision to the finished story I had posted under this title. I got to feeling like the ending wasn't right, so I opened the story back up, so I could do proper justice to the characters.**

Okay, they fuck. You saw that coming, right? He's Tony Stark. He fucks, it's what he does. Loki's...

All right, that's where it gets hard. ~~He gets hard, then Loki gets hard, then... Come on, like you weren't thinking it?~~ ...No, but seriously, if he knew what Loki was, he'd be back in rehab now. Because he'd know how to hold onto him while he was gone, see? 

...So first of all, they go back to Loki's hotel, which this little shit-trap of a place, out by the highway. And he's got this little room on the first floor, way back under the stairs and next to the ice machine (which is empty). And the place is really crap, but it's a while before Tony notices. Or cares. At first he's thinking about Loki. Then next after that, it's the same game they always play.

Him: “Come on, what makes your ass so sacrosanct?”

And Loki: Drink-drink, from the bottle of tequila he's got on his side of the bed. Does he think Tony doesn't see it? Does he not care? “ _Women_ do that. I am a warrior, Stark.” Then fumble-fumble, in the drawer of the nightstand. “I brought you these.” Condoms. “Also this.” Lube. Coming from Loki, it's practically a love letter.

Then after that, it's the same game they always play _next_. -- Do you really need details? A guy's not allowed privacy any more? – That takes a long time, like all evening and half the night. And somewhere along the line, in between being reamed for about the 40th time, Tony thinks to check the time on his Stark-phone, and it's official: He's not going back to rehab tonight. This, he thinks – Vaguely. While Loki puts on another condom, and tells him exactly what is going to do, exactly where. – is just a minor detail, because he'll definitely go back tomorrow. And he tells himself that he means it, very sincerely, but he also doesn't think about it much, because he's too busy.

The Domino's in town doesn't deliver after 3:00 AM. Also, Loki has this incredible tolerance, and he's still awake after that whole goddamn bottle of tequila, which is more than Tony could ever have managed in a life that was pretty much devoted to drinking. So there it is, and it's, like, 4:00 AM, or 5:00 maybe. Tony's toes are all tangled with Loki's, and his head's on his chest, so Loki's soft, tequila-scented breath just tickles his forehead. And he's thinking, “Maybe I'll go to sleep now... Naw, I've got two more weeks to go in rehab. I'll sleep there.” And at the very back of his head's this thought: Maybe they'll make him start over and do four whole weeks? Maybe this'll affect his parole? But the scritch-scritch-scritch of Loki's fingers, running against his cheek is a nice distraction, and he doesn't think about it too much.

Then all of a sudden, there's a bang, bang at the door.

“Cops.”

Okay, Tony must have been more asleep than he thought, because that comes out of nowhere. “What?” he says, with all his usual wit and intelligence. 

Loki's sitting up, and his body's rigid. “Cops,” he says. “Is that not what you call them? Your realm's police?”

So brilliant-Tony goes, “Why would cops be here, of all places?”

Darkly, “They are here to take you _back_.”

Okay, that's just crazy-talk. But it turns out the reality isn't much better, because when he gets up, and puts on a stray pair of undershorts he finds on the floor (Loki's, as it happens), and opens the door, there's Rhodey standing there. 

Rhodey gets this shocked look on his face. “I didn't believe it, Tony,” he says. “Even after Pepper told me.” And Tony sees his nose working. He smells the tequila, he thinks. Loki's tequila.

“I'm not drinking.” Tony doesn't move. Let Rhodey stand out in the goddamn doorway. It feels wrong, but there it is: Let him stand there. Let him, and everyone else, stand back and watch Tony fuckin' Stark make his own goddamn decisions for a change, instead of waltzing the fuck in and taking over. “Anyway, it would be my choice if I was. I'm an adult, remember?”

Christ, the look on Rhodey's face. It's just this little flicker of the eyes, this little, not-trusting-Tony kind of a flicker, and then he looks up, like he's trying to see past him into the hotel room. 

And Tony leans in the doorway (wearing nothing but Loki's shorts, because nothing says “you can trust me” better than standing around half-naked in hotel doorways) and keeps on blocking his way. “You got Happy out in the car?” he says. “You're going to wrestle the drunk back to rehab so he doesn't embarrass Pepper's company?”

Brown Rhodey-eyes close, then there's this up-and-down movement of his chest, as he takes a deep, steadying kind of a breath. He's got his reasoning-with-crazy-people on _good_ here, folks. “It's not Pepper's company. – When did it become Pepper's company, Tony?”

Behind him, Tony hears a movement, coming from the bed. “Don't come over here, Loki,” he thinks. “I can finish this, it'll be over, he'll leave ~~(and I can find out what the fuck's going on with you, because there is no way in hell I am going back to rehab if you're going to die on me while I'm gone)~~.”

So he's standing in the doorway, looking at Rhodey. And he's got his yeah-I'm-normal look on his face. Yeah, who doesn't stand around in hotel doorways naked, and tell their best friend a lot of bullshit to make him go away? “Her company,” he says. “My dad's company. Be honest, Rhodey: When was it ever mine?” – He sees the flicker in Rhodey's brown eyes, and he thinks, “I did it.” – “All I ever wanted to do was build things, but there's always someone else around with an agenda.”

Up and down goes Rhodey's chest, kind of an I'm-giving-up-soon sort of a breath. “You've got to go back to rehab, Tony.”

Stiffen. He can feel himself stiffen. – _No, Tony don't fuck this up, he's about to leave._ \-- “Yeah, and I will.” It comes out too fast. Tony makes himself take a long breath. “Seriously.” – Doubt on Rhodey's face. When the fuck did his every word start earning goddamn doubt? – “I'm going back today. – It is morning, right? – I never left for good. There's just something I have to do first.”

“Something...” He sees Rhodey lick his lips. Then he's peering over his shoulder again. He wants to block his view... But he wants to look normal too. “What, Tony? What's more important?”

_My business. Just get the fuck out of here. When did my life become your fucking business?_ But he's all like, it's cool, it's okay... Then Loki comes over, and he sees Rhodey looking at him, and he's like, ohhh, shit.

“Loki.” – He sees all the trust disappear off Rhodey's face faster than he put it there, but you know what's crazy? You know what's fuckin' crazy? It still doesn't matter as much as Loki's hand on his shoulder, and that feels goddamn good. – “You're still with Loki.”

Nice Tony-voice, _rational_ Tony-voice: “My life, remember?”

“That you're f...” – _Go on and say it, “That you're fucking up...” I can read you like a book, Rhodey._ – Lick-lick of Rhodey-lips, followed by a swallow. Rhodey's _learning_. He's getting really good at not-nagging. “Yeah,” Rhodey says. “Your life, Tony. I...” – One more quick look at Loki, then his eyes are on Tony's face ~~(his scared, worried eyes)~~. “I'd better be going.”

“This is going to be okay, trust me.” And rational, cool, calm, _reasonable_ Tony watches until his friend is gone. Then he closes the door (really calmly and reasonably), and then he is glued to Loki. And Loki's spider-thin arms are around his neck, and his arms are around his skinny waist. “You are goddamn not going to die on me and make me a liar in front of Rhodey,” he says. But Loki doesn't say anything back in return.


	13. The Fucked-Up Fuck-Buddies in Room 115

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki _begs_. Tony is appropriately creeped-out.

So for a minute or two, Tony and Loki are glued together. – Glued? They're _welded_ , like two bodies that are one body, two men that are one man. And he's like, “It'll be okay, this'll all be okay.” And he feels a movement, that's Loki breathing in, just this little hitching, hurty-feeling breath. Then there's a little scent of tequila going past his cheek as he breathes out again.

Then Loki pulls away. “It won't be okay.” He goes over and he sits on the bed. There's some artist, Tony doesn't remember the name. His parents had one of his sculptures in the back yard (first thing he took out when he was having the place redone): These long, skinny legs, and these long, skinny arms, and all of them at right angles, and the head, tiny and bowed, and depressed-looking. That's how Loki looks, with his knees bent, and his elbows on his knees, only his soft hair falls down and covers his face, that's all that's different. He doesn't look at Tony, and he doesn't say anything more.

Finally, Tony goes over there. He sits on the bed. Skinny-Loki moves over for him. ~~Skinny, negativo-Loki, who's always got to look at the dark side.~~ “Of course it'll be okay.”

Green eyes look at him. Green, dead eyes ~~that make him want to hit him~~. “Why?”

_Because I'm Tony Stark. Because it's always okay._ Loki's face is all hollowed out and pale. And those dead, dead eyes. ~~Look at me _right_ for a change, why can't you?~~ “Why won't it be?”

There's not even any contempt in Loki's snort. It's just sort of there. Sort of a breath. “You're so arrogant since you've been at that place.” –

“That place”. Rehab, in other words. Where he's supposed to be right now. Jesus. ...But he's got to finish this first. If it can be finished?

“If I'm arrogant, it's because I've fixed things before.” He sandwiches a cold Loki-hand in between his two warm ones. Spidery Loki-fingers, the nails still bitten, still black-painted, just like always. “I've solved problems. Like...” Gesture at the chest. Oh that's right, no arc reactor any more. “Like that thing I used to have, remember? When you used the magic scepter?”

“Performance issues.” Faint, faint smile, like this little curl of pale lips, against even paler skin. “How could I forget?”

“And then you threw me out the window.” – God _damn_ , this is a sick relationship! Is he actually trying to talk someone out of their depression by reminding him of when he tried to kill him? Pepper's right, he is fucked-up. – “The arc reactor... I _made_ that, Loki. I literally saved my own life.”

Now he's leaning against Loki's legs (his skinny legs). And for a change it's Loki's hand (his skinny hand), running through Tony's hair. 

“You can't solve this,” Loki says. “They'll come for you.”

“They?” – Soft, tickly feeling of Loki-fingers in his hair. –

“Your Midgardian police.” – And a Loki-arm around his shoulder. – “That was the agreement, didn't you say? You stay at their 'rehab', or they will put you in prison?”

“So?” Shrug, don't dislodge the warm, Loki-arm. And all the time, inside his stomach is shriveling. _Prison_? It won't come to that, right? How can he keep it from coming to that? ...But they're cuddling up. And now Loki's got his legs out, and he's sitting between them, and his head's on his stomach. Did he say Loki felt cold before? No, he's warm. Tony rolls, puts his arms around Loki's waist. He buries his face in that warm stomach of his... Oh crap, bad idea. God damn, he feels so _thin_.

“I've been locked up before.” His casual tone is ...almost as convincing as it was before. And an almost-easy laugh. “I've been locked up by the best. You heard of Aldrich Killian? – The Ten Rings?” Of course he hasn't. Super-villain from outer space, why would he have heard of them? He likes to keep up on the competition?

Thin Loki-stomach goes up and down. A sigh. “So you're going to...”

Echoing Tony-sigh. “I'm going back to rehab. If they'll take me. Or I guess I'll go to jail if they don't.” A shrug, kind of awkward, when you're lying between your alien boyfriend's skinny legs, and up against his skinny stomach. “It's a _month_. You can hang on... – Hell, half the time you don't even want me around.”

And there's another Loki-sigh, a long one. And for a long time, there's no answer. And Tony wraps his arms a little tighter around the skinny Loki-waist. He buries his face against him. And that's all there's going to be, right? Problem solved? ...Problem postponed at any rate, so he can have another try at solving it later?

At first, he doesn't even think he's heard it: “Don't go.”

And when you're lying on someone's stomach, and you look up, what you see is their chin. Up above that, you see their nose. Their eyes are just these vague, distant shadows. Loki's are hollow, dark green shadows. “Don't go,” he says again.

Loki's begging? That's just wrong. It's the most fucked-up thing that's happened so far. Next thing, he's going to be inviting him to give it to him up the ass. Tony sits up a little, so he can look at him right. “Come on, where's my badass Reindeer Games?”

Nothing. No answer.

“You're not seriously saying you can't make it without me?”

“I am saying I'm not going to remain in this world.” 

He's said it before. He's said it, like, a million times. “Depression. You should get it treated.” Under his arms, he can feel Loki's body stiffen. “You can't die,” Tony says. “Your people are immortal.”

And there's a long, long sigh. “I want you to come to Hel with me.” 

No. – Does he say it, or does he think it? – You don't put your life back together so you can lose it again. “You mean Hell, like the Afterlife? I thought your people went to Valhalla.”

Impatient Loki-sigh. “ _Heroes_ go to Valhalla.”

Right. As opposed to Frost Giant mass-murderers. So Tony blurts out, “ _I'm_ a hero.” 

And right away Loki's like, “ _You_? Ha!” And so they're arguing about who will go where, after they both _die_. Pretty goddamn fucked-up, right?

So Tony says, “You're not going to die, Loki.” But meanwhile, what he is inside, is mostly scared. And he's not exactly sure what he's scared _of_.


	14. Change of Air, Change of Scenery, But No Change of Ideas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brilliant-ass Tony Stark, tries to _lie_ to the God of Lies.

You can't actually stay in a hotel room _all the time_. Just looking at four blank walls? You're going to go fucking nuts. And the last thing Loki needs is to be more nuts. He's already got himself thinking this whole death-thing is really going to work (It's not. Asgardians can't die). He's going to exit out of this old beautiful world, and Anthony Edward Stark is going to go with him. That's like, 1/10th depression, and 9/10th's just being in this goddamn room, with fuck-all to do; anybody would start to go crazy in this situation.

So he's, like, talking and talking. He's all, “Oh, _death_ this,” and, “Oh, _suicide_ that.” 

And it's all about them being stuck here. – _All of it_. He wasn't like that, the whole time they were in New York. – And Tony's trying to figure out how to fix that one. 

What can he do? Well his lawyers can get him out of the jail-thing. That's the point of having a whole stableful of high-priced lawyers on retainer, right? So they can get you out of things? ...So that'll take care of _that_. And as for rehab, maybe he'll go back and do it again after this is all over. Maybe he'll do the whole thing. If he starts drinking again. ...Or you know, if he thinks he needs it, he'll do it. It wasn't that bad (except for the not-drinking part). A little touchy-feely, and too much, “Ooh, Mr. Stark, can you explain your fee-eee-eeelings about that, blah, blah, blah,” but not bad.

First thing before that though, there are some problems he needs to take care of: He's got to get them out of this hotel room, which is slowly driving him as nuts as Loki is. And he's got to do something about Loki. He can't let him die, he can't. Too many people have already left. Where's fuckin' Pepper? Where are his _parents_? – 

Jesus Christ, that one just came right out of nowhere. See? It's the room's fault. Being cooped up like this makes anyone go crazy. – 

...Loki. Is not. Going to die. Period. He probably can't even die. Asgardians are immortal. He's going to be here ~~(with Tony)~~ forever. But in the meantime, he has to shut up about it. A guy can't think, with him talking and talking.

...So it's, like, only 12 hours since Rhodey was here (but it seems like it's been weeks). – Did you know you have to get _out_ of a hotel room in the middle of the day so housekeeping can clean it? You got any idea how creepy that feels, when you have cops looking for you (probably)? ...And when your only companion is a crazy-ass Asgardian super-villain? – So he and Loki spend, like, most of the afternoon, sitting by the pool. Which is this little concrete box, a lot like their room is a little concrete box, only this one is underground. It's con _cave_ , instead of con _vex_ , if you can understand that. It's also empty. Try sitting around an empty pool all afternoon. And you're all twitchy, because for all you know you might get your ass arrested any minute. And your boyfriend has another bottle of booze. Vodka. And he keeps sucking on that thing, and talking about death.

And you're like, “Shut up, I'm trying to think.” But you can't tell him _what_ you're thinking about, because what you're thinking about, is trying to lie to him. Groove on that for a while, why don't you? Anthony Edward Stark is going to _lie_ , to the fucking _God of Lies_. ...Yeah, so who said Loki was the only crazy one in the relationship?

So Loki's all like, “Stark, you said you'd do this. Stark, it was _your_ idea in the first place...” – Was it? It couldn't really be, could it? How drunk would he have to have been, to say something like that? Oh, and by the way, there's enough reason to stop drinking right there, if you're wondering: Because you could give your crazy boyfriend some seriously crazy ideas. – “Stark, I'm not going alone.”

And Tony's like, “You don't want me, you just want fuckin' somebody else. It could be anybody.”

And so Loki says, “Is that so terrible? I've been alone enough already.”

Fucking Loki. How's he supposed to answer that? So, “Okay,” he says. “I'll do it.” And there's Loki over close to him right away, and his arms are around Tony's neck, and his face is buried in Tony's throat. And Tony's thinking, “Oh Jesus Christ, what the _hell_ did I just get myself into?” But it's okay, he thinks right away after that, because Loki's not going to be able to kill himself, right? So all that'll happen is he'll try, then he'll fail, and then Tony'll be right there to help him through the Five Stages of Grief or whatever. This is just purely temporary.

So after that is when their room is ready, again, so they go back in it. – Oh _yay_. They get to look at the con _vex_ concrete walls, instead of the con _cave_ ones for a while. – And Loki's all happy (for now), because he hasn't figured out yet, that Tony is lying to him.

And Loki's like, “Oh Tony Tony, how do your people kill themselves?”

And Tony's like, “Well, there's pills.” – How bad would _those_ hurt an Asgardian, he's thinking? Not much, right? – “And there's knives.” – Like he tried on Thor. That didn't do anything, practically. – “And there's guns.”

And Loki's like, “Guns, hmmm. Can you get me one, Stark?”

Tony's like, “Ye-eeaaah...” And meanwhile inside, he's trying to work out how you engineer it so your crazy-boyfriend _thinks_ he's got a good chance of dying, but he's really got no chance at all. – It's not actually an issue. Asgardians can't die. Period. – “A gun,” he says. And he's thinking, if he gets a really teeny gun from someplace, will Loki buy that it'll work? ... _Can_ he get a really teeny gun (or any gun at all for that matter) when he's currently – He thinks. – wanted by the police? He can, right? Criminals manage it all the time, just watch the news. So he'll do it the same way they do?

Christ, this is totally not going to work. Illusions are Loki's _thing_. And lies, and tricking people. He's going to figure out what Tony's up to and then he'll be pissed ~~(and then he'll leave)~~.

Tony hasn't quite figured a way around that part, yet.


	15. Useless Little Hammer-Gun (And the Useless Guy That Bought It)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which lies unravel, and Pepper is _no help at all_.

You can get anything you want, if you're rich enough, but if you use your credit cards, you're going to leave a paper trail. Tony hasn't even shown the gun to Loki yet (He was out when he got back to the hotel), and here's Pepper, already calling and wigging out about it.

“A _gun_?!?” – You want to know the funny part? He actually starts missing her when he hears her voice. Bitch kicked him the fuck out, but he's thinking about how she used to brush his hair back from his face, the way always it felt safe, when he'd to wake up in the middle of the night, and he'd hear her breathing. – “Tony...” She kind of screams it. “Are you CRAZY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?”

So what's he supposed to say to that? He's like, “I thought that had already been established.” –

That little irritated intake of her breath: She used to do it for him. While she fixed all his problems. It was a good sound. – 

“Seriously Pep,” he says. “I've got this under control. – How did you even know about the gun?”

She's like, “Both our names are on the Mastercard, Tony, don't you remember?”

Yeah, right, of course. The account he opened when they started going out. And all she ever used it for was that dress, the one _he_ said he liked. Pepper likes paying for her own stuff.

So he says, “I have this under control, Pepper,” AGAIN. “Just this little, tiny gun. Hammer-tech, the worst you can get. – I got it for Loki. Because it won't work.”

“Loki,” she says. “You got him a gun because it _won't_ work.” “Tony, you're nuts,” comes the unspoken message, and he's hurrying to talk over it before he knows what he's doing.

“Yeah,” he says, “Loki. You got a problem with that, Pep? I'm supposed to be alone all my life? Will that make you happy?”

And nothing comes from the other side of the phone (except that unspoken, “Tony, you're nuts,” which just keeps coming over and over, and louder and louder). And he talks some more, to keep it away. “How's the arc reactor production going, Pep?” he says. Also, “Listen, if that crap-ass Hammer tech on the War Machine suit is giving Rhodey any problems, I could be persuaded... I've been thinking it's time to get back to work.” 

And then Pepper says it: “You're nuts.”

“Like you're one to talk,” he says (which doesn't really make much sense, but since when do retorts have to?). And then, “Pepper.” he says, “can we be winding this up? I do have things to do.” – “Like letting my crazy boyfriend think I'm helping him to kill himself,” he thinks. “And pretending I don't know what a piece of shit that gun is.” – He doesn't say, “You could come over here and fix this whole thing.” – Although she could. -- “You're good with people, and I'm not.” – Although it's true. – 

She gives one more of those sighs, and she's like, “Bye, Tony.”

And he says, “Bye.” And he hangs up, and he feels kind of sad. But then he hears Loki's key in the door and his heart starts to go crazy, because if this is going to work, it's going to have to work _now_.

So the door opens, and there's Loki with a liquor-bag in his hands. And Tony's like, “Do you always have to drink that shit around me?”

Loki's like, “You got the gun, didn't you?”

Always with the fucking gun. He's like, “You don't need that thing.” 

And Loki's like, “Yeah Tony, I do. Where is it?” 

It's actually kind of a cute gun. Just this little shiny thing, sitting all alone in its big, black box. Tony actually feels a little protective of it, but he feels more scared of what's going to happen when Loki gets hold of it. “No,” he says. “You don't.”

And Loki sits down next to him, and he takes the gun in his hands. “Yeah,” he says. “I do.” –

Why? Why-why- _why_??? – 

“We've been through this before,” Loki says (although they haven't, really). And he takes Tony's hand, kind of absent-like. Was he aiming for the gun? Did he, like, _miss_? “Just give it to me. Stop getting in the way. We had an _agreement_ , Stark.” –

Yeah, that's another thing, their agreement: Tony hasn't let himself think about that yet. He's still stuck on the one where he tries to fool the God of Lies into _not_ killing himself for long enough to... Long enough to _what_? Well, he hasn't thought about that one yet either. ...Long enough to get him help. It's not a crime, you know. People need help sometimes. You get it, and you move on with your life, and you make better decisions. –

“Maybe I don't want to go through with it,” he mumbles (while he still thought he was going to lie).

And Loki's eyes go cold. “Maybe you're just like all the rest of them,” he says.

And Tony puts his own hand on top of Loki's hand, in a kind of a hand-sandwich, that's designed to keep him there, to keep a part of him there, so he can feel him close. But then Loki pulls away. “I'm not like the rest of anybody,” Tony says. “I'm just me, and I love you, and I don't want you to go away.”

But somewhere about the third word into the sentence, he can tell he's losing him. First there's a question in Loki's eyes, and then there's nothing in them, no understanding or anything. Like he's speaking binary, or Klingon, or something. “Poor, sad little mortal,” Loki says. “I expected too much of you. I suppose you are not going to go with me, either?”

To go... (Tony licks his lips, which are suddenly very dry.) ...To go _with_ him... And he thinks about a world without Loki in it. But he can't die, can he? Only he can, of course, he'd know whether or not he can _die_ or not, and all this time, Tony's been lying to himself.

So then he says the dumbest thing in the world: “Please don't go.” And then since he's already started saying dumb things, he just keeps on: “We'll make it work,” he says. “I'll be right there for you, whatever it takes. I don't know what's bothering you, but we can beat it, you and me together.” And he reaches out and takes Loki's hand again, but this time he doesn't pull it away, he just lets it lie there, all cold and dead.

“No, Tony,” he says. And he takes the gun out of the box, and turns it around in his hands. “How do you load this?” There's Loki's hand wrapped around that goddamn little Hammer-gun. He'll pull the trigger, and all Tony will have left is his bleeding corpse, and his goddamn empty liquor bottles, to remember him by. 

And suddenly Tony's grabbing his hand and pulling (like trying to bend solid iron). “I lied,” he says. “I got you that crap-gun on purpose because it won't work.” – Faint nod from Loki as if he already knew that, then another dark look from his green, green eyes. – “I don't want you to die, I can't let you die. Please...” 

_Vile_ look, from the green Loki-eyes. “You're embarrassing yourself, Stark.”

Yeah, well he's done that enough, lately. What's one more time? ...If it works.

And click, click, click, and Loki's loaded the gun. And brush, brush, brush, there goes his hair away from his face. And there goes the gun, up against the side of his head. And then silence. And nothing. A long, long moment of nothing. ...And then down comes the gun. He closes his eyes, and for a very long time he doesn't even move. 

...And then he hears, “Your gun failed, Stark.” – But he didn't even fire. – 

Then Loki's like, “ _I_ failed. One of my many failures.” 

And Tony wants to fuckin' hug him, but when he reaches out, Loki pushes him away. “Failures? Pfft!” – 

Loki shuts him up before he can go any further. “I shouldn't have expected so much from a mortal,” he says. “Too much. You are weak, like all your kind.” 

And Tony's like, “No, I'm weak in all my own ways...”

But Loki just shuts him up again. “I'm going out,” he says. And then he walks the fuck out the door.


	16. In Which It Turns Out That Asgardians Can't Die After All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And in which this turns out to be way worse news than Tony would have thought.

So he just sits there for a long time, just sits there and looks at the back of the door Loki went out of. And what's in his head? Does he think Loki's going to die out there? Like pretty soon the cops are going to come, and they'll be all like, “We found this dead body, and we want you to identify it”? That's like... That's like, the real easy version. Something's happening here that's bigger, and harder to explain, than dead vs not-dead. That look on Loki's face before he left: That was a dead-look. Maybe he's already lost him, even if he survives?

So then he tells himself, this is not normal thinking. Normal people do _not_ sit around all by themselves, thinking defeatist thoughts. Normal people go out and do something to fix their problems.

And then his mind comes right back at him with, “Like what, exactly? What's he supposed to do? Is he going to get inside Loki's mind somehow, and figure out _where_ he's gone, and _what_ he's doing, when he was never very good at seeing into his mind even at the best times?”

And then the other part of his mind is like, “There's not really any good reason not to go get a drink, about now.” It's a very persuasive part of his mind. It would feel so good, so goddamn good, just not to have to think about Loki, and not to worry about him... – Not to think about _anything_ for a while, just a little while. Doesn't everybody deserve that? Then common sense reminds him he's wanted by the cops, right now, so his ass is going to be nailed if he sets foot in public. And there's no booze in the hotel room (Yeah, he checks), so that's that. Yay sobriety.

Somewhere along the line, he goes to sleep. – Okay, that's the Ativan they gave him at rehab. Said he had a problem with anxiety. Which he doesn't, no more than anybody. But what's not to like about a drug that'll knock you the fuck out, when you don't want to think about stuff? – So there's a blank of a few hours. 

So then he wakes up, but Loki's still not there. – You find very interesting things on TV at 3:00 AM, by the way. All kinds of fascinating cleaning products, and news in foreign languages, and sitcoms that weren't funny when they aired 30 years ago. Plus no bars open, so lots of incentive to stay in and watch all of them, hooray. – So picture him there, Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, genius-inventor: He's sitting there with his shoes off, clicking between the cute weathergirl talking about “frentes frios,” and the “probabilidad de tormentas electricas,” and good old Andy Griffith, still standing in front of the same courtroom, in the same rumpled seersucker suit, and he thinks, “Is this what hitting bottom looks like?”

Then just before the continental breakfast opens at 6:00, the door slams open, and there's Loki. And he looks like death. Bad joke. Anyway, it's not true. He looks as alive as he always did, and not even any thinner than before. And his arms are all loaded down, and he comes in, and he dumps all this crap down onto the bed: Huge gun, – Like a seriously, bigass gun, like an AK-47, only this is the Latverian knockoff version. – and another little gun, and a couple empty bottles of drain cleaner, and another full one, and some bottles of pills.

He could be asleep right now, Tony thinks. He could be in any bar in town, facedown in a puddle of his own puke, and this whole thing would go right by without him even noticing (Only he can't, of course, because the bars are all closed). And he looks at all the shit Loki dropped. Then before he can look up at him, Loki sits down on the bed next to it, so Tony looks _across_ at him instead. And the only thing, seriously, the only thing his mind throws up for him to say, is “What is this, some kind of suicide-central?”

And Loki goes, “You were right, Stark.”

Stupid, joker-part of his brain says for him to say, “I'm always right.” Tony manages to ignore it. Which leaves him with nothing to say.

“Your mortal world cannot kill me,” Loki says. “Odin has chosen his prison well, for it is one I cannot escape from. I thought so...” – He kind of pokes at the pile of suicide-things all over the bed as he talks. – “I did not let myself believe it...” Faint smile, across his face, faint little grimace-smile, that's gone before Tony's sure he's seen it. “Your optimism infected me.”

“My...” Tony doesn't have any optimism. – Did he ever have any optimism? – So, here's what he thinks to do. Here's what seems like a good idea to Tony: He reaches over and he picks up that Latverian-AK, and he starts dismantling it. What's that about? Like suicide is getting further and further away, for both of them, if he can just get the goddamn _gun_ apart? So then little pieces of gun start piling up on the bed (and a whole crap-ton of live ammo). “Loki,” he says, in this stupid, I've-got-fuck-all-to-say kind of a croak.

“Tony...” Loki says, in this soft, gentle, not-Loki-sounding voice. And he touches his face, really gently, with one soft hand. “Tony, I should thank you, because you gave me escape.”

Nothing to say. And Loki doesn't touch him again, so Tony doesn't touch him either.

“The drink,” Loki says, “your mortal alcohol: It helped for a while, and I let myself believe it would give me the escape I wanted, and then you went away.”

_Rehab..._ – Tony's brain is working really, really slowly. It serves him up a word, then nothing for a long time, then another word. – _Stupid. Fucking. Rehab._

“Maybe I'd still believe there was an escape for me if you hadn't gone,” Loki says. “Maybe not. I'm not blaming you, Tony.”

His stupid traitor-brain still isn't giving him any answers (and all the while, the pile of Latverian-AK pieces on the bed is getting bigger and bigger). Why no answers? Can't he talk unless he's half-sauced? Tony licks his lips, but the best he can manage is another weak, “Loki...”

“There's no escape for me,” Loki says, “and there never will be. And I just came to say thank you, Tony, thank you for trying.”

And now he manages, “But I didn't. I never...” And he finally puts the Latverian-AK down (what's left of it). And he puts his arms around Loki's waist. And he's sure he's going to push him away, but he doesn't, instead, he puts his arms around Tony. And rests his head on his shoulder (scarily, un-Loki behavior). “I never...” – Tony's got no idea why he's saying this. Where's the confession-button in your head? And how do you arrange to un-push it? – “I never tried, Loki. It was all a lie. Because I didn't want... I couldn't stand to lose you. And I never protected you... – Never took care of you. I was a drunk, a stupid, fucking drunk. And now...” And he shuts up (finally), but only because he doesn't know “and now,” what?

For a long time, Loki just stays sitting there, with his arms around him, and his head on his shoulder. He stays there long enough that part of Tony's brain (the stupid part) starts thinking everything might be okay. That's when he pulls away, and there's a sad look on his face.

“I've got to leave.” 

“No you don't,” Stupid-Tony says.

“Yes.”

“No.” Stupid-Tony can't let it go. “See, they just started serving the continental breakfast. Who knows what they've got there? Could be anything. ...I've got two week-chips from the rehab. You know they give you a free drink for each of those things at the bar in town? ...Loki, did I tell you about my parents' vacation home in St. Croix? See that's good, because the cops down there won't know about me. We could go down there together... We could drink the whole island dry... – You know it's an island, right? Beautiful island, nice and warm. And the people are nice. ...Oh, and the food...”

It's about here that Loki cuts in and says, “Yes,” again. Then something about not being able to escape Fate. And he hugs Tony again, a really tight, hard hug. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for letting me escape my fate for a little bit longer.”

And you know, even Stupid-Tony can't think of anything to answer? What's he going to say? “There is no fate”? “We make our own fate”? It all seems so inane, and pointless. And besides, even while his brain is serving the words up to him (slowly, and stickily, like they're dragging, one at a time, out of a tar pit), Loki's pulling away again. And he's getting up. 

He digs into his pocket, and he takes something out and tosses it onto the bed. It's one of Tony's credit cards, that he never even noticed was missing. “You may have that back.”

“That's okay.” Somewhere at the back of his mind Stupid-Tony's hard at work again, this time with some kind of crazy plan for tracking Loki down, based on his credit card purchases. “You keep it,” he says.

But Loki just says, “No.” He goes over and grabs his suitcase from where it's been sitting closed ever since Tony got here. “This is good-bye, Tony.” Then he goes over, and he opens the door.

Stupid-Tony tells him to say, “We could try committing suicide over again” but Tony ignores him. 

“Stop,” he says instead (because that's so much more _not_ -stupid). “Wait, Loki...” And he gets up. And he's in time, he could technically grab him and at least try to hold onto him, because when Loki hears him, he pauses there in the doorway and waits. But for the life of him, Tony can't think of any more arguments he hasn't tried yet. He really can't. “Please come back,” he says. “Sometime, any time. Please Loki, don't let this be forever.”

And Loki's like, “You won't want me back. You will banish me, just like Odin.”

And Tony's like, “Never. Please Loki, can't you stay?”

And this time, Loki doesn't answer. And he holds Tony tight, tight, very tight, for what seems like a long time (and not long enough, at the same time). And then he picks up the suitcase again, and he goes.


	17. You Were Expecting Maybe, a Happy Ending?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Replaces the previous Chapter 17. This is the last chapter of the story:
> 
> What do good-byes look like? (And why do they have to fuckin' happen?)

He saw Loki one more time. – One more time... Take a moment and think about that one, all right? Just a moment, then move on. Because Tony's moved on, because he's had to, all right? Because he's fucking had to. – ...He saw him one more time, in terms of _really_ seeing him (he still sees him lots of times, across a battlefield, but that's another story, another, filthy story). And he wanted to say what was on his mind: “Why, Loki,” he wanted to say, “why, when we could be together?” But that's begging, and begging doesn't work. We've seen that before, haven't we, ladies and gentlemen?

“Why did you go back to it?” he said instead. “You never wanted to be a villain.”

And Loki looked at him, green eyes that looked dead inside, in his pale-white face (but even like that, he was just so beautiful). “I suggest you re-think your premises.” Double-talk. Political-sounding double-talk. “I'm a Frost Giant,” he said, “I'm a...”

But Tony cut him off before he could say “I'm a monster”. “You're Loki,” he said, “and you were with me, and I love you.” – _Loved_. He'd loved him, he meant to say. – And he closed the distance between them, and he took Loki's hands in both his. His hands, those long, gorgeous hands of his, that used to go everywhere... And his own hands went up his wrists a little, and that's when he noticed it. It's when he saw what wasn't there. “Odin's bracelets... Where?”

“They're not there?” Loki said. “Is that what you were going to say, with your wonderful mortal perspicacity?” – 

“Perspicacity.” Long word, defensive word, for keeping mortals away. – 

“Victor charged me dearly for taking them off...”

“Victor... von Doom.” Because that's who he worked with most of the time, at least it was back then.

“...Without the bracelets of course, I paid him quite easily. It was a matter of moments.”

Stiff-lipped: “And you stayed with it?” he said. “After that, you stayed... You never...” He had to swallow to get the words out. “You could have come to me, Loki.”

And Loki's soft little laugh, his soft, hurt-y laugh. “Then you'd never have gotten anything done, Tony. Your whole life would have been wasted. Did you really want that?”

And somewhere inside, part of him was saying, “At least I'd have had you...” And another part was thinking he was probably right, and that would have been horrible. “I'd have been fine,” that's what he finally said. 

And another laugh from Loki. “Right.”

And that was when Tony grabbed him, and held him tight, tight, tight enough that he couldn't get away. And that's when he felt Loki's body melt against his, and he felt... – He's sure of it. – ...He felt his tears against his own neck. And that's when they kissed, and then he knew there'd been tears, because of the salt all over Loki's lips (only maybe that was from his own tears). And that was when he told himself that if their kiss never ended, Loki would never go away again, and they could just be together, they could be together forever.

...And that's when Loki said, “You knew I was the God of Chaos, Tony. You knew my destiny was to destroy. And I knew yours was to save the world.”

And that's when Tony lied through his teeth, and said, “The world doesn't need saving, and besides, it isn't my job to save it anyway.” ...That's when he thought about the suit, about walking away from the suit forever, and from what it let him do, that needed doing. And that's when the whole idea of the world, and of anybody trying to save it, made him want to vomit.

And it passed, of course. That stuff always passes. You know, you go your whole life, thinking feelings are forever, but they're not. Nothing lasts forever.

And Loki went away, and he was just as beautiful in that last moment that Tony was looking at him, as he was the whole time they were together. And Tony went back to what he'd been doing when he came, which was building a new suit to use when he had to save the world again. And after a while, Fury called, and there was work to do. Some kind of work. A dragon, or some moleoids, or Being from Another Dimension. Something, anyway. There's always something.

And he sees Rhodey sometimes. And Happy. ...And Pepper. Who'd have thought he'd see Pepper again? They're friends now ...sort of friends... _She_ thinks they're friends, anyway, and sometimes it pays to indulge her, for the company's sake.

...And a man with clout can always get a drink in this town, and all the beautiful arm-candy he wants. You think it's a tragedy? _Please._ There are people who get their limbs blown off every day, in meaningless accidents. There are people getting killed, all over the world, in wars and shit. That's a fuckin' tragedy. This is just some guy who took longer than usual to grow up, and the ~~beautiful, lost, fucking-loveable, broken~~ Norse god who helped him pretend for a while that he didn't have to. Just let it alone, all right? Just let the whole thing alone. You've probably got a life of your own that needs taking care of, anyway.


End file.
